Between the Lines

Autodesk Tandem Digital Twin Platform for AEC Beta Released

This week Bob Bray, Autodesk Sr. Dir. and General Manager of Autodesk Tandem, announced the availability of the new Digital Twin platform Autodesk Tandem beta release on the Autodesk Feedback Community. Read more →

Where to Get Autodesk Betas

Today, a few betas were announced or mentioned today on the first day of Autodesk University 2020 in the keynotes and industry sessions. After all the high profile mentions of Autodesk betas, people ask the obvious – “where do I get the betas”. That's an easy answer, the Autodesk Feedback Community, if you already have an account sign in and make sure to update your profile and if you are new, sign up and answer a few questions and you... Read more →

Making your voice heard as an Autodesk Inventor User

If you are a user of Autodesk Inventor, the Autodesk Inventor Team wants to hear from you in many ways as well provide some information on what their plans are in future releases of the product. Inventor Team member Loren Welch Sr Product Manager for the Inventor product line at Autodesk wrote a nice blog post on all the ways you can get your feedback to the product team and participate with others on future Inventor needs. There is also... Read more →

Revit Users – We Need Your Feedback on 3D Export

Do you need to export your Revit models into other 3D formats? We would like to invite you to take this short survey to give us feedback on your experience with “3D Export Functionality in Revit”. https://autode.sk/2LhYf1j Your feedback on the products you use helps us build better products for you. You can also sign up for providing feedback on future Autodesk product feedback at the Autodesk Feedback website. https://feedback.autodesk.com/ Read more →

Meet Project Discover for Dynamo

My colleague Kean Walmsley announced on his blog Through the Interface on the new Project Discover for Dynamo out of Autodesk Research and is ready to be tested. It is a tool that we used to perform generative design in the AEC design for our Autodesk Toronto office including predicting the natural light rays into offices to assist in office location based on employee preferences (video Generative Design for Architecture: Autodesk MaRS Office). Read Kean’s overview in his blog post... Read more →

3ds Max Public Roadmap

Are you a 3ds Max user, and want to know what is in the future and to be involved? While I am on a roadtrip this week, you can have a good read of what our 3ds Max team is looking at down the road. 3ds Max 2020.1 and Public Roadmap You can also apply to participate to test and provide active feedback on the future products like 3ds Max. We listen and need your input and feedback to be... Read more →

Realtime Revit BIM Models in Unity in Just One Click

Today, the awesome fi9ne folks at Unity announced the collaboration with Autodesk for a Revit importation product named Unity Reflect. Unity provides a platform for all sorts of immersive 3D possibilities in AR/VR and more that have bent my mind at times. Now with Unity Reflect you can import your Revit BIM 3D model in one click. Get a hands on look at Autodesk University London in just two weeks! https://unity.com/event/au2019 “Announcing Unity Reflect, a new product for architects, building... Read more →

Autodesk Product Teams Want to Hear Your Feedback

Have you had feedback or suggestions for an Autodesk product like the AutoCAD or Revit teams but didn't know how to get it directly into the product managers email inbox, I have the solution. Go to the Product Feedback page and enter you feedback in there and it is then distributed to the product team who do read these. This is not for product support issues but for your feedback and requests for the products. Autodesk Product Feedback Page https://www.autodesk.com/company/contact-us/product-feedback... Read more →

Introducing Arnold 5.3 with Arnold GPU Public Beta

So many updates to the Arnold renderer that all add up to realistic 3D renderings and eyeball melting graphics. Arnold now brings artists the power and flexibility of CPU and GPU rendering in a single renderer! Introducing Arnold 5.3 with Arnold GPU in public beta Arnold 5.3 with Arnold GPU in public beta will be available for download on March 20, 2019 as of 12 noon PT / 3pm ET. Arnold is available as a standalone subscription or with a... Read more →

Autodesk Generative Design Beta for AEC - New Version of Project Refinery Beta

“Project Refinery is an Autodesk generative design beta for the architecture, engineering and construction industry that gives users the power to quickly explore and optimize their Dynamo designs. Project Refinery not only lets you create design options, but it also allows you to set goals and optimize for those goals. When you choose to maximize or minimize designated outputs, Refinery will return the best options. Refinery allows users to leverage the power of the Dynamo package manager and run custom... Read more →

Design Automation for Revit - Public Beta

If you have wanted to read, write, and modify data from Revit without installing Revit from within the the Forge cloud platform, then today is your lucky day. The Revit Design Automation API was just launched as a public beta. “Today we’re announcing the availability of Design Automation for Revit as a pubic beta. Using Design Automation, you can create, edit, and extract data from Revit models without a local Revit install. Because Design Automation is a cloud service, you... Read more →

Do You Want to Know What is Coming in Future Revit?

Here are some great ways to find out what the future of Revit has planned, and how you can help shape it. One is to check out the Public Roadmap which a new one was just published on the official Revit Blog. Revit Public Roadmap – January 2019 Submit your ideas to the Revit Ideas Revit Ideas http://www.autodesk.com/RevitIdeas Another option is more of a heavy lift, you can get involved and actively participating in the beta program for Revit at... Read more →

Autodesk Inventor and Autodesk Product Betas

There is a newly posted build of Autodesk Inventor for those participating or those wishing to participate in the beta testing. Our customer beta testers are a critical member of our product teams and success by providing real-world feedback and requests to help shape the future of our products. To be considered to participate in a beta for any Autodesk product, sign up if you haven't already at feedback.autodesk.com or for access to the Inventor beta use the link below.... Read more →

AutoCAD Automation Beta on the Forge Platform

Access many of the AutoCAD objects in an API on the Forge platform as a Design Automation Beta. Automate repetitive and time intensive tasks and save time. Design Automation API (Beta)v3 https://forge.autodesk.com/en/docs/design-automation/v3/developers_guide/overview/ “Imagine you have thousands of DWG files stored in the cloud, and you need them all converted to PDF files. Ordinarily, you would have to download all the files, run a script on them in the AutoCAD desktop software, and then potentially upload them all back to the... Read more →

Inventor Design Automation on Forge Beta

The Inventor Design Automation API for Forge is in public beta. This can allow you to harness the power of the cloud for repetitive tasks. Design Automation API (Beta)v3 autode.sk/2LXv6FX “The Design Automation API (V3 Beta) provides the ability to use the core API’s of your favorite CAD engines, in the cloud, leveraging the scale of the Forge Platform to run automated jobs. These jobs could be highly repetitive or frequent, or could be larger problems that need large-scale processing... 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 →

Autodesk Feedback Community Maintenance Monday May 22nd, 2017

Monday May 22nd, 2017 at 7:00pm PST, Tuesday 3:00am GMT, (lasting up to 4 hours) We will be upgrading the server hardware and application software of our Autodesk Feedback Community platform that hosts both Autodesk Alpha/Beta and Autodesk Tech Previews for over 300,000 users around the world. Planned Maintenance: Monday, May 22nd 7 pm PST, Tuesday 3 am GMT There will be an outage for up to 4 hours. What do you need to do? Nothing really except be aware... Read more →

Revit 2018 Released – What's Ahead on the Revit Roadmap?

Revit 2018 released this week with many new enhancements and features. Congratulations to the Revit product team for another great release and to the awesome beta participants that are integral to the quality and success of our products by kicking the tires early in development. Read more on Revit 2018 here: What's New in Revit 2018? - Revit Official Blog But what about the next release of Revit? Well just like the Fusion 360 team the Revit team is providing... Read more →

Autodesk 2018 Products

Some of the Autodesk 2018 products have been released from beta and available for download now. The two main ones I am aware of are AutoCAD 2018 and Autodesk Inventor 2018. AutoCAD 2018 (beta codename Omega): Many changes under the hood including major performance improvements but some also required changes to the DWG file format. We had been trying to hold off on impact to file formats but over the past 5 years the time had come with all the... Read more →

Autodesk Feedback Community Planned Outage February 19th, 2017

The Autodesk Feedback Community where Autodesk Betas are hosted will be down for planned security and hardware maintenance on February 19th for approximately two hours. Planned Maintenance Sunday, February 19th. The maintenance window is from 10:00 PM to 2:00 AM PST, but the expected downtime should only be from 11:00 PM to 3:00 AM PST (7:00 to 9:00 AM GMT). What do you need to do? Nothing except be aware of the downtime. Read more →

Autodesk Feedback Community Planned Outage January 28th, 2017

The Autodesk Feedback Community is where most of the Autodesk Betas take place. From time to time we need to upgrade hardware and do some database upgrades. We never take an outage lightly on this large user community, but there are times when it needs to be done and this is one of them but thankfully a short planned outage. Planned Maintenance: Saturday January 28th 6pm PST until approximately 7pm PST. The Feedback Community will be offline for approximately 1... Read more →

Over a Quarter Million Served

There are now over 250,000 people in the Autodesk Feedback Community which is home to most pre-release beta testing for Autodesk products and technologies, Autodesk Labs, and some usability projects. I remember when I started at Autodesk in the Beta team in 1998, we had 3 beta projects of AutoCAD, AutoCAD LT, and AutoCAD Mechanical and under 500 beta customers who were sent a physical CD ROM to test and then fax or email bug reports back to... Read more →

Technology Trends with Benefits - Changing Technology of Autodesk Alpha and Betas

Having been involved with Autodesk betas for almost 19 years, and 5 years prior to that as a customer participating in multiple Autodesk betas I have seen a great deal of change in technology when connecting our product teams to our customers for pre-release testing. Over the years, the beta program technology has evolved from long days manually burning floppy disks and CD-ROMs and then shipping those out to people and then waiting for faxed or emailed bug reports to... Read more →

Project Expo Tech Preview – Blowing Minds

I wanted to share and highlight one of our amazing tech previews for Revit users that is getting great feedback in our Autodesk Feedback Community where Autodesk pre-release alpha/betas and Autodesk Labs projects are managed. Project Expo brings Revit models to life in an interactive real-time environment on desktop, mobile, the web, or VR. “Project Expo is expected to upend the visualization world for the entire AEC industry – giving you a new tool to wow your clients and to help make informed decisions – together – in real-time. Project Expo uses the Autodesk Stingray game engine, which was released in August 2015 to incorporate a recent acquisition of a gaming engine to move Revit models to this environment via Autodesk 3ds Max rendering software. With Project Expo technology under the hood, Autodesk’s cloud platform, and a truly simple one-button rendering in Revit, what more could you ask for? The experience is immersive, real-time and far more intimate between your firm and client. “ Read more →

Changes to the Autodesk Feedback Community

Over the past two weeks we have had some changes like the username and password split into two steps in the Autodesk community sign in process that impacted projects for users of Autodesk Beta and Autodesk Labs. My colleague Scott Sheppard detailed the issue in a blog post Changes to the Autodesk Feedback Community Login Process are In Progress. It was initially a fairly bumpy change as we were unaware of the changes coming. Since the change we have been... Read more →