Between the Lines

On This Day January 30, 1982

In Marin County California, a small group of people got together January 30, 1982 and formed Autodesk. As founder John Walker stated “the game has changed.” 36 years later Autodesk is a rare technology company that is still around, innovating, evolving, and helping our customers imagine, design, and create a better world. Autodesk Flying Founders From left to right: Rudolf Künzli, Mike Ford, Dan Drake, Mauri Laitinen, Greg Lutz, David Kalish, Lars Moureau, Richard Handyside,Kern Sibbald, Hal Royaltey, Duff Kurland,... Read more →

Instructables Minecraft Challenge 2018

Perfect contest for kids and young adults to win a 3D printer! “Pack up your torches, swords, pickaxes, and loaves of bread to get yourself ready for the Minecraft Challenge! Demonstrate your Minecraft mastery with intuitive gameplay tutorials or show how your gaming talents translate into the real world with Creeper crafts, edible Endermen, stuffed Strays and much more. Instruct others with everything Minecraft for a chance to win a Creality CR-10 3D Printer with Glow in the Dark Filament,... Read more →

Modify an STL file in Fusion 360

Have you ever needed to import geometry from other software but weren't quite sure what was the optimal method to do this and be able to edit the geometry? Lars Christensen shows us how to quickly import and modify a STL file in Fusion 360. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxC-kwuksug Be sure to subscribe and check out Lars other Fusion 360 tutorials for great tips and tricks on design and CAM in Fusion 360. Read more →

Jumpstart Your Cloud solutions with the Forge Team

Join the Forge team for deep dive assistance at a Forge Accelerator this year, for free. “Attending a Forge Accelerator is a great opportunity for your software development team to learn and work intensively on a Forge-based project with one-on-one support and advice from Autodesk Forge API experts. If you have an idea for a new web or mobile application based on Autodesk Forge APIs, or you need help getting an existing application working, then come along to the event... Read more →

AU5K Run Results

It has been only 2 months since Autodesk University 2017, but many of us will never forget it. I especially won’t forget the first year my AU annual run was made into an official event and a huge hit with well over 100 runners participating. I can’t wait until next year and healing my left knee meniscus to be able to get back to my normal running self. Here are the AU5K aka Shaan’s Run results.It wasn't a race by... Read more →

An Epic Piece of Autodesk History –The Nozzle

An amazing surprise as I walked into the office this morning, Kevin Schneider presented me with the historical original nozzle used in many sample files and demos of AutoCAD and Autodesk Inventor over the past 34 years. AutoCAD 2.6 included a sample drawing of a nozzle that has been one of the iconic sample drawings in AutoCAD release history, known affectionately as “the nozzle.” The creator of the drawing Don Strimbu designed the nozzle in 1983 using a primitive featured... Read more →

On This Day 20 Years Ago

On this day a much younger version of me left a design seat as an Autodesk customer and started with Autodesk in San Rafael California. Here is Autodesk customer Shaan Hurley, Mechanical Designer of Oregon Iron Works Portland Oregon in 1997. I was interviewed for the AutoCAD R14 demo CD. Here is my first Autodesk employee badge as well as a photo of me in my san Rafael office. Autodesk was hovering around $6.50 a share price and now is... Read more →

Bespoke Bodies

An Autodesk BUILD Space Residents Outradius is featured in the Design Museum Foundation exhibit Bespoke Bodies. Outradius is using Autodesk Fusion 360 to advance designs for a low-cost, form fitting, upper limb socket which can be used with more complex upper limb prostheses in the future. One of the other featured stories in the exhibit is the amazing and inspiring Jordan Reeves and her Project Unicorn. Jordan designed a glitter shooting prosthetic using Tinkercad and Fusion 360. “Advancements in medicine,... Read more →

Portland Winter Light Festival

Friday not only did we hold our office holiday party, but afterwards I got to be a guest at the VIP reception for the Portland Winter Light Festival that Autodesk is a proud local sponsor of. I met the organizers of the event as well as some of the artists. This is the 3rd or 4th year of the event held along the river in public areas and it is free. There are over 100 artists with displays and this... Read more →

AEC Hackathon in SF Bay Area

Are you an AEC professional and like to explore and perhaps compete in a challenge? These are fun and educational events. http://aechackathon.com/sf-bay-area/ Read more →

140 Years Next Week

Next week I will celebrate and reflect on 20 years working at Autodesk, or 140 in dog years due to our dog loving culture at Autodesk. I am going to gather up some of my fondest memories and accomplishments for a blog post next week. Autodesk has been a job that I only intended to do for two years then go back into a design seat, but I am still here for several reasons and my colleagues are like extended... Read more →

Know a Kid?

If you know a kid, then you should also know Tinkercad. Tinkercad is free and browser based with nothing to install. Tinkercad is the perfect exploration and fun tool to create things easily in 3D and even 3D print them into physical creations. It has been amazing to see what kids (adults too) create by using Tinkercad. It provides an easy way to understand spatial relationships almost like using the modern tinker toys or playdough. You don't need to teach... Read more →

How to Get Involved in Autodesk Beta Testing

One of the ways to improve the Autodesk products you use is by getting actively involved in the beta testing. Beta testing involves the early testing and providing feedback on unreleased versions of the software and is critical to improving the features and stability of the products. Read more →

FIRST FRC 2018 Power Up – Are You Ready!

This Saturday January 6th 2018, the new FIRST FRC 2018 season game and field will be revealed which will then set thousands of high school teams and they will begin work on their robot designs followed by the competitions. The only thing we know right now from FIRST in their public hints and teaser video, is that the game and field is themed “8-bit” and the game is named “POWER UP”. FIRST Robotics Competition Game & Season Info Autodesk will... Read more →

What is Autodesk Forge

Forge is the future platform for Autodesk where all applications and services can use a common cloud based platform to view and extract your design data – and more. Several Autodesk and 3rd party applications have already made use of the benefits of this platform, but do you want to know more about Forge and what it offers? Scott Sheppard wrote a nice overview with a diagram as well that explains the APIs and benefits of Forge. What's so hot... Read more →

Happy New Year 2018

I have just returned from the holidays and all rested and refreshed and ready for this fresh new year.I spent the past 2 weeks hiking, snowshoeing, shoveling snow and ice, playing with my dog, and relaxing. I hope you had a great holiday and new year. I want to sincerely thank you for reading Between the Lines blog. Without you there is no reason for the blog. If there is any feedback and suggestions for Autodesk and technology related topics... Read more →