Between the Lines

Premiums Instructables for Teachers and Students

Students & teachers get free premium Instructables memberships! Take online classes & explore educational projects. Examples of Instructables for teachers and students: 100 STEAM Projects for Teachers Instructables for Young Engineers If you are not aware, Instructables is a gem for learning how to make almost anything. With step by step instructions called Instructables you lean how to do everything from science projects to building a boat and even to baking a rainbow layered cake or building a campfire or... Read more →

Autodesk Design Night Portland

Last evening we held the 1st Autodesk Design Night Portland and one of many I hope to be held in Portland in the future on various technology themes. This Design Nights theme was “Virtual World: Seeing Beyond Reality” and the event was completely packed and sold out. It was held at the stylish downtown Portland office of local creative agency INDUSTRY. Autodesk does have a Portland area office currently in Lake Oswego with almost 200 employees, but stay tuned for... Read more →

Five Ways AR and VR Will Improve Our Current Reality

Technologies allowing us to interact with virtual objects have been around since the ‘70s, but in the last few years the technology has become more sophisticated and pervasive. Augmented reality and virtual reality—a wholly virtual world—are being used in almost any industry you can imagine, transforming the way we experience architecture, archaeology, history, education, medicine, visual arts, and more. Come unleash your imagination at Autodesk Design Night Portland and see how these technologies are fusing the digital world into our... 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 →

FIRST Robotics FRC STEAMWORKS 2017

Details of FIRST STEAMWORKS 2017 Robotics Game Revealed And they were off as of just over a week ago on January 7th reading the game rules, discussing strategies, and then talking about design of their robot to best compete this year. This is my second year participating with Team 1540 Flaming Chickens. Last year among the thousands of teams they made it to the World Finals. Team 1540 already has their design all designed in one week and sourcing parts... Read more →

Aerial View of Lake Oswego Oregon Autodesk Office

I recently purchased and received my new personal UAS/UAV a DJI Mavic. This little drone folds up and can be easily packed in my backpack or camera bag and has many advanced technologies like obstacle avoidance and several automated flight modes like follow me and follow terrain. II t can go 40mph and has a radio range 4.6 mile range however FAA rules require visual one of sight which is definitely not that far. The camera is not as good... Read more →

Revving Up for a Manufacturing Revolution With Hack Rod

Great article on Hack Rod by Drew Turney on Redshift. “Do you have a great idea for a new product but don’t have a fully equipped manufacturing plant to realize it? Thanks to a pair of California hot-rod enthusiasts, the whole manufacturing workflow—from conception to assembly—might someday be within your grasp.” http://bit.ly/2gGpS0u Read more →

3D Printing Stainless Steel with Giant Robot Arms

YouTube star Tom Scott recently visited our Autodesk Pier 9 to meet with my colleagues Maurice Conti, Heather Kerrick, and Evan Atherton in the Applied Research Lab to discuss robots. Big robotic colleagues Bishop and Ash make cameos appearances. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9pknU0zv9c At Autodesk's Pier 9 workshop in San Francisco there are giant robot arms using welders to 3D print with stainless steel. Which seemed like a good place to talk about programming abstractions, high-level languages, training pendants, and just how safe... Read more →

The Future of Making Things - Robotics

This is a really great video featuring my Autodesk colleague and team mate Maurice Conti, Director of Applied Research and Innovation providing a glimpse at how robots will augment and collaborate with humans in the future. A couple other team mates gave a cameo in the video like Evan “Robot Lover” Atherton, Heather “Robot Tamer” Kerrick, and David “Robot Whisperer” Thomas. Read more →

FIRST Robotics Team Event Girls Generation October 15

The events are starting for FIRST Robotics teams here in Oregon with a great event "Girls Generation” just over a week away on October 15th. My Catlin Gabel Team 1540 Flaming Chickens are hosting this event at their campus in Portland www.catlin.edu/map. Only girl team members may drive the robots and be in the pits.Teams will be playing using last years competition robots from Stronghold. I hope you will join us at the event and see how much fun it... Read more →

AR, VR and MR - Oh My

Learn about AR, VR and MR and the impact it will make for all of us from Autodesk Brian Pene Director of Emerging Technology, Office of the CTO. Five Ways AR and VR Will Improve Our Current Reality http://autode.sk/28WjqhN In recent years, technological advances, coupled with a proliferation of affordable hardware and software, have made immersive technologies like augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR) and mixed reality (MR) more commercially feasible than ever. A flood of investments into these new... Read more →

Autodesk ReCap Helps Preserve & Share the Story of the Antikythera Shipwreck

Autodesk ReCap helps preserve & share the story of this shipwreck with 3D models & 3D printed artifacts http://autode.sk/2dpgn8q Read more →

Commercial UAS Pilot Certification - Check

The FAA has enacted new regulations that went into effect on August 31st, 2016 for US based small unmanned aircraft systems UAS/UAV/drones over .55 pounds but under 55 pounds after what felt like a wild wild west of unclear rules awhile drones became very popular for both hobbyist and commercial companies including Autodesk for construction and reality capture technologies. Drones Take Off In the Construction Industry as a Cost-Saving Tool Diary of a drone pilot – Medium Both hobbyist and... Read more →

One Week with the iPhone 7 Plus

Just over a week ago I drew a Friday 8am reservation for the new iPhone and upgraded as I do for the camera and increased storage alone. The new Apple reservation process was easy as I was in and out with the new phone in 5 minutes and had the first Apple 7 Plus Black matte for the Portland store I was at. After having used the phone for just over a week I have a few personal observations. The... Read more →

Smart Materials

Max Moruzzi is the senior principal research scientist in our Autodesk Research and has authored an article for Techcrunch on how smart materials will change and reshape the world for better through design. This is another remarkable glimpse at the Future of Making Things. How Smart Materials Will Literally Reshape the World Around Us tps://techcrunch.com/2016/09/17/how-smart-materials-will-literally-reshape-the-world-around-us/ “The IoT may well be The Next Big Thing, but maybe the attention around sensors is misplaced… What if we didn’t even need embedded sensors... Read more →

Support Oregon STEM

The Oregon 2016 Tech Exec Auction just started and we have a high flying option to bid on with Autodesk Vice President Simulation, Greg Fallon. Not to be content with just another wine or brewery experience package in an auction event, Greg felt it would be unique and fun to actually involve a STEM experience and discussions with flying sUAS/UAV friendly drones and dinner. We can even capture 3D models of the terrain using Autodesk’s technology in addition to giving... 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 →

FOUR - Using Science Fiction to Explore Technology

Autodesk has published a free new electronic book titled FOUR. Science fiction and storytelling are a great methods of delivery to convey technology and explore the possible future. FOUR is the newest installment of stories developed by Autodesk's Strategic Futures project, where we use science fiction to explore how technology that we are working on today can and should shape the future. Storytelling has played an extremely important role in the development of human culture — since before we could... Read more →

Fast Cars and Generative Design

Back in May of this year I had the pleasure to be in the hot and beautiful Southern California desert at Trona Pinnacles near Death Valley with a group of engineers, scientist, champion Baja 1000 champion race drivers, car builders, mechanics, designers, cinematographers, technologists, and more for a historic off road race car project test for a generative designed car, the Hackrod. The Hackrod was designed by Autodesk Dreamcatcher using design input and performance data from many types of sensors... Read more →

BattleBots Watch Party at Autodesk with Robots, Fun, and Prizes!

Don’t miss the chance to meet two BattleBots, Bronco and Mega Tento, in person(robot) at Autodesk’s First Annual BattleBots Watch Party! On the heels of last year’s wildly successful TV reboot of BattleBots, the world’s premier robot sporting event, bots and humans alike will assemble to watch the show’s Season 2 premiere. Come join us at the Autodesk Gallery in San Francisco—the birthplace of robot combat—to watch the BattleBots rumble while enjoying food, drinks, robo-swag and fun activities. You can... Read more →

Autodesk Forge Developer Conference Keynote

If you were unable to attend the Autodesk Forge Conference this week, you can still watch the keynote on YouTube. Forge is powerful set of cloud services, APIs, and resources for developers to quickly create the data-centric apps, experiences, and services that power the future of making things. Read more →

Aerial 3D Terrain Mapping with a Drone

Recently I edited a 3D model and created a quick video in Autodesk ReMake (formerly Autodesk Memento.) The 3D model was generated using Autodesk ReCap 360 Pro from photos taken last month using an UAS/drone in the hot windy Trona Pinnacles near Death Valley California. The ability to create 3D textured models from aerial photos opens up many possibilities in design, construction, and site mapping. Autodesk has released specific features in ReCap 360 Pro named Fly that allow you to... Read more →

Autodesk eBook Disrupting giants of industry

Autodesk has released a new eBook on the future of design. Disrupting giants of industry: The advantage of small engineering teams Future of design Smaller engineering teams have the advantage of being more agile, due to necessity. Their lack of resources require maximum efficiency. With today’s technology, these teams can leverage shared manufacturing resources like 3D print on demand and shared manufacturing facilities. The internet and secure networks make it possible to access shared engineering resources to fill whatever gaps... Read more →

Smart City Challenge Final Pitch – 7 City Finalist Including Portland

The United States is facing an infrastructure crisis as our roads and bridges are aging and exceeding capacity. “Last December, US Dept. of Transportation (USDOT) Secretary Foxx launched the Smart City Challenge in response to the Beyond Traffic draft report, which revealed that our nation’s aging infrastructure is not equipped to deal with a dramatically growing population in regions throughout the country.” On Thursday, June 9 at 2:00pm ET the mayors of the seven finalist cities: Austin Texas , Columbus... 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 →