Between the Lines

The Autodesk Group Network – Find Your Group

There are currently 70+ groups around the World and growing of thousands of Autodesk product and technology users just like you. Go have a look and find your group or enter your existing group (add a group) to the growing list. Local groups are an invaluable resource and network as I remember running the Portland Autodesk Users Group years and years ago and many awesome local people looking to share ways of using the software and back then it was... Read more →

Design Automation API Webinar Series - Register Now

Have you ever wanted to automate and process or create data or drawings using a cloud based API in an almost-headless configuration? Design Automation on Forge is most likely the answer to this need. There is still time to get hands on with the new Design Automation APIs. Four webinars are scheduled in December that will cover each of the Design Automation APIs in depth. Register Now and read more at the Autodesk Forge Blog https://forge.autodesk.com/blog/design-automation-api-webinar-series-register-now December 5 - Design... Read more →

Learn Autodesk BIM 360 - FREE

Are you looking for some training on using Autodesk’s BIM 360 to better manage your construction risk, improve quality, and deliver projects on time and on budget, and the training courses for free? Here is a great resource for you to learn BIM 360 Document Management, Approvals Workflow, Quality Management, RFI Workflow, Submittals Workflow, Cost Management, and Design Collaboration. Get started now at https://learnbim360.autodesk.com/ Read more →

Autodesk Forge Accelerator in NYC September 9-13

A Forge Accelerator is an opportunity for cloud developers to spend one week with the Forge team, with one-on-one help building applications. Apply to attend the #Accelerator in NYC from September 9-13: https://autode.sk/2GCGhCz Jim Quanci Senior Director, Autodesk Developer Network announced today that this event will be held at the big New York City Amazon AWS offices making room for more participants. From Twitter https://twitter.com/jimquanci ”Just teamed up with @awscloud- to hold the Autodesk Forge Accelerator in their large NYC... Read more →

Machine Learning Unleashed to Aid in Construction

Machine learning has been a growing in this ever growing world of growing data. It has been in your hands surfacing tips and reducing tasks on your phones, in your bank statements, everyone and now in construction. Autodesk has released a preview of Construction IQ after several years of research and testing to help customers identify risk, Construction IQ Preview available for Quality and Safety for customers using BIM 360 Field. Using machine learning can surface insight into your construction... Read more →

AEC Hackathon This Weekend in Seattle

Starting tomorrow, another (41st actually) AEC Hackathon will be held this time in beautiful Seattle Washington and I will be participating. The AEC (Architecture, Engineering, Construction) Hackathon was created to give those designing, building, and maintaining our built environment the opportunity to collaborate with cutting edge technologies and its developers and designers. It has quickly become a community of innovators that include all elements of the built environment, not just AEC all around the world. Please join all of us... Read more →

Autodesk Launches Construction IQ – AI to Reduce Construction Risk

Increase your project’s intelligence and reduce risks by using some artificial intelligence trained using machine learning models from data from over 30,000 projects. Autodesk just introduced Construction IQ in a public preview where an artificial intelligence service works with Autodesk’s BIM 360 project management platform. ”Formerly known as Project IQ, Construction IQ for quality and safety analysis started in private preview in 2016. Altogether, the algorithm was developed with 150 million construction issues and checklist observations. Subcontractor assignments and historical... Read more →

Interested in AEC Space Analysis for Dynamo and Refinery – Meet Project Discover

Kean Walmsley from our Autodesk Research Team wrote a great blog post on space analysis using Dynamo and Refinery. “For Project Discover we used 2D space analysis to calculate various metrics that scored the individual layouts: Adjacency Buzz Productivity Views to outside Daylight The first two are largely about calculating paths between various locations, while the last three are implemented by ray-casting. These approaches are definitely connected, though: you need to specify boundaries (and barriers) that the various algorithms will... Read more →

Introducing Autodesk FormIt v17

A big update release to FormIt is now available on the web or for Windows. Enjoy a new Dynamo experience, BIM 360 Docs, Meshes, Plugins, Orthographic Views, more Visual Styles, Material placement adjustment, Non-Uniform Scale, and more! https://formit.autodesk.com/blog/post/introducing-formit-v17 Give the web version of FormIt a try, there nothing to install. https://app.formit.autodesk.com/ https://formit.autodesk.com/page/release-notes/#release-notes-web Enhancements Significantly improved app loading time, especially when the app was run previously in the browser and a cache from the previous session exists. A new geometry type:... Read more →

Industrialized Construction Is Growing and Needed

Yesterday I attended the 2019 Industrialized Construction Forum held by Stanford University Center for Integrated Facility Engineering. This was a packed event attended by by not only academia, but industry. The presentations, panel discussions, and conversations with attendees were very good and thought provoking on the impact and changes to construction and our built world in the near term and long term future. Some of the technologies and considerations involved society, AI/ML, robotics, offside prefab, modular construction, skyrocketing costs from labor and materials, and sustainability. My big takeaway is that Industrialized Construction “IC” may be the best solution to solving the limited resources, reducing carbon footprint, addressing the global housing shortage, and overcoming the labor shortage in the construction industry. We at Autodesk couldn’t agree more in doing More, Better, with Less. Read more →

Want to Work for Autodesk in Portland and Know Autodesk BIM360 or Revit

There is an open BIM support role in our awesome downtown Portland office. Enterprise Support Specialist, Designated Support Specialist BIM360 Location: Portland, OR - United States Job ID: 19WD31609 Enterprise Designated Support Specialist, REVIT Location: Portland, Oregon -United States Job ID: 18WD31213 Read more →

Autodesk Forge San Francisco Accelerator

Are you looking to develop a powerful cloud based solution to connect your designs, business, or industry? Develop for the cloud with Autodesk Forge with direct help from the Autodesk Cloud Engineering team. Autodesk Forge Accelerator is an opportunity to work intensively on a chosen project with help, support and training from Autodesk Cloud Engineering teams. The Autodesk Forge Accelerator is designed to help creative developers leverage Autodesk Forge Cloud APIs - https://developer.autodesk.com Apply now to take part in our... 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 →

Updates to Reality Capture API on Autodesk Forge

Updates were made the reality capture API on Forge that not only dramatically improves the resulting quality and speed to produce a mesh or view point clouds, but also adds geolocation for InfraWorks. For example you can use this Forge API to generate a 3D textured mesh from photos taken buy a UAS (drone). Read More Updates to Reality Capture API “The Reality Solutions team is excited to announce the availability of our next generation Forge Reality Capture API. We’ve... 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 →

Forge DevCon Keynote 2018

The Forge DevCon was held on the first day of Autodesk University. The keynote was great and you can now watch it on YouTube. It was apparent from the Forge DevCon they will need to expand the are as it was packed with Forge developers,partners, customers, and employees this year and many amazing 3rd party solutions built upon Forge being shown. Forge DevCon Keynote 2018 “Watch the full Forge DevCon keynote from November 12, 2018. Featuring Jim Quanci, Brian Roepke,... Read more →

Thank You Seattle Startup Week

Last Thursday I spoke on a panel How Technology is changing the $10 trillion construction industry at Seattle Startup Week with: Greg Howes - Cofounder, CutMyTimber, AEC Hackathon, Seattle Proptech Amy Hutchins - Founder, Chief Product & Technology Officer, Unearth Technologies Salla Palos - Director of Emerging Technology & Innovation, Sellen Construction Greg Howes opened the panel discussion with a quote on a slide from Autodesk CEO Andrew Anagnost about AEC and Manufacturing are merging. He then asked the panel... Read more →

Generative Design Workshop in Portland October 4th

What: Join us at Autodesk Portland office to explore what is possible through generative design. This 1-day Workshop will gather engineers and designers for an exclusive hands-on look at Autodesk's generative design technology. This in person event is FREE so register soon as available seats go fast. When: Thursday, October 04, 2018 from 10 AM to 4 PM. Lunch is included. Where: Autodesk Portland at 2212 SE Ankeny By the end of the session, attendees will: Understand how to save... Read more →

Moore or Less

I was thinking last night about how technology has changed over the years, and how Moore’s Law has apparently been broken as computer CPUs are not doubling computational power each 18 months. We have not seen the transistor density and computing power doubling for a couple years now. I understand it is a feat of engineering and physics to do this and I'm not certain of the reason chips have slowed their advancements in recent years, but does it matter... Read more →

10 million friends, with over 100 million things designed in Tinkercad

Tinkercad hits 10 million users!!!!! Imagine all the people of all ages that have gained an understanding of 3D and making things in a few short years. Nothing short of amazing. Congratulations to the Tinkercad team and the 10 million users aka friends! Here is a great letter from Guillermo Melantoni and Sarah O'Rourke marking this major milestone. Hello Everyone, Almost five years ago Autodesk acquired Tinkercad. We definitely saw its potential. A very well polished user experience with easy... 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 →

Autodesk Forge - What is it?

Have you heard people talking about Autodesk Forge? Perhaps you wondered what it really was and why it will be a big deal. Jim Quanci Senior Director, Autodesk Developer Network recorded a recent YouTube video that might help you better understand What is Forge and show you some live examples for customers and developers. Read more →

Fusion 360 in the Web Browser

Now you can edit your Fusion 360 models on your iPad, Chromebook, or Linux machine using only a web browser. Fusion 360 in the browser works on virtually any device with a browser. The Fusion 360 in the browser is only in preview at this time with several features not yet exposed, but they will be in the future. The purpose of the browser preview is to get your feedback. Imagine a future where you can go to any connected... Read more →

Glen Canyon Dam 3D Model Created by Autodesk ReCap and ReMake

In August of 2016, a team of Autodesk employees including myself Shaan Hurley and led by Autodesk’s Pete Kelsey along with Autodeskers David Dreffs, and Carlos Orona and a team from the US Bureau of Reclamation took on a very large infrastructure project to capture the second largest US dam Glen Canyon Dam located on the border of Utah and Arizona in the beautiful American Southwest. The Glen Canyon Dam is just 16 feet shorter than the Hoover dam and... Read more →