Between the Lines

AutoCAD WS is now AutoCAD 360

The popular web, mobile, and Mac App known as AutoCAD WS has now been renamed as AutoCAD 360. AutoCAD WS now AutoCAD 360 has been downloaded over 12 million times in just 2 years and is still a free version plan with more functionality being added all the time. Adding AutoCAD WS as AutoCAD 360 to the Autodesk 360 platform family will provide a unified experience and allow for more powerful functionality, integration with other 360 applications and services, and collaboration and much more in the future. Read more →

Big Hearty Autodesk Welcome to Tinkercad

Autodesk announced yesterday at Maker Faire which is essentially the center of the universe event for DIY & Makers our intent to acquire Tinkercad. Tinkercad is an easy-to-use browser-based 3D design tool and will become part of the popular Autodesk 123D family of apps and supports Autodesk’s vision to help anybody imagine, design and create anything.. The addition of Tinkercad to Autodesk will help broaden the The acquisition will also revive the Tinkercad service and community, despite a previously announced shutdown by its founders and creators. Tinkercad has been one of the favorite tools of many Makers just wanting a simple web based 3D design tool to create 3D models for 3D printing. With Autodesk as a new parent and placed into 123D Family it is not only not going away as was the case before Autodesk, but it will be improved and given much love and attention. Tinkercad Blog Post: Tinkercad has found a new home at Autodesk Go give Tinkercad a try, its super simple and a fun way to create 3D geometry for 3D printing or just for fun. http://www.tinkercad.com Read more →

Met with @AutodeskHelp This Week

Jessica Thrasher ^JES,Philip Schmelzer ^PHL and Amanda Kinley ^AK, and me (Shaan Hurley) ^PIA If there was ever a reason to jump on Twitter, @AutodeskHelp is one of them. Autodesk has a team that assists people in social media. They do not avoid a challenge and just take the easy ones but also actively engage those with highly charged tweets as those usually only take some personal assistance and attention to solve their problems, or just point them in the right direction. I was in San Francisco this Monday and Tuesday and finally met in person with the @AutodeskHelp team’s US members. This team is doing amazing things that more companies should be doing and that is use the power of social media to engage and assist customers. Simply put they are in the right place, doing the right thing. Read more →

Autodesk FormIt 3.0 Released

Autodesk just released the 3rd version of the iPad App Autodesk FormIt after launching it at Autodesk University just a couple months ago at Autodesk University 2012. The team has been rapidly adding features and addressing requests based on users feedback. FormIt is the easy to use 3D conceptual modeler for the Apple iPad Tablet. You can create shapes and forms, and then later refine them in the auto-magically created Revit .RVT file or in another application using the SAT file. While FormIt is great for architectural design, there really are no limits and you can just as easily model a robot or any other 3D concept model. It is just plain fun, oh and it is also FREE. Read more →

Are Blueprints Really Dead?

I read an online articles headline stating blueprints were dead. I would love that, but in reality I find that proclamation of blueprints being dead as a headline hard to believe at this time. This topic also started a flurry of tweets discussing if paper blueprints were really dead and discussing if hardware could survive some work environments. Read more →

Autodesk Help on Twitter

If you are on Twitter and looking for a product related question from Autodesk then you are in luck. For about a year or so there was a Twitter account by Autodesk Customer Service and Support team first at @autodeskcare which is now @AutodeskHelp. Read more →

Vasari Talk 24 - Introducing Autodesk FormIt and Vasari Beta 2

Join Tom Vollaro and Lilli Smith tomorrow as they discuss the new Autodesk FormIt free iPad App and the recently released Vasari Beta 2 for conceptual architectural design and more. Wednesday, Jan 9, 2013 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM EST http://ning.it/Xi7Sdy Read more →

Get Free Adobe Creative Suite 2 - Not

Apparently there are no strings are attached in this big free giveaway. You will just need to wait for their website to recover from the crash due to the massive traffic to download the Creative Suite. CReative Suite 2 “CS2” contains Photoshop, Illustrator, and nDesign. I am not sure Adobe did this just to be giving and charitable in the new year but perhaps down the road convert a percentage of those that download to upgrade or buy a new products. CS2 has plenty of of what people need when using Photoshop. The current version of Adobe Creative Suite is now CS6. In any case go get your free copy when their website recovers before they stop. Read more →

I Was In New Zealand Last Night

I presented to an Inventor User Group organized by CADPro Systems last night in Christchurch New Zealand, but I never left my house, dealt with the security & customs checkpoints, or the long flight with the standard baby with an earache crying with an unchanged diaper on the 15 hours of flights each way. I used my webcam and GoToMeeting web conference software to present to the user group virtually where I could see and hear the attendees and they could see and hear me. It was 10:30 pm time Wednesday (Halloween and wearing my Zombie Food shirt) and 5:30pm Thursday for them, so technically I was presenting into the future. Read more →

Have Webcam - Will Travel by Internet to Your User Group Meeting

I always enjoy attending user groups and do whenever I am in a town having one. Since I cannot really travel to all user groups, and receive numerous requests to speak and attend in all corners of the globe, I felt this would be one way to attend and participate user groups and customer training sessions almost anywhere. I am expanding the number of my Autodesk presentations without the added expenses of travel, living on planes (in the Hurley seat) and those frustrating airports part. I will begin offering web based meetings to user groups and company teams. Read more →

Nine Years – Wow Time Flies

Expect me to post a celebratory post about this blog turning 9 years old on the upcoming Tuesday August 21, 2012. Read more →

Autodesk University 2012 Social Web Session & Only 105 Days Left

The speaker is Dan Zucker Lead on Autodesk Social Media, and I was the co-speaker. This session will be great for anyone wanting to understand social web and media such as Facebook, Twitter, and more with best practices and applies to everyone from customers, partners, and Autodesk employees. Unfortunately there is currently a class conflict as I have another session at the same time. Read more →

AutodeskCare Solving Problems Tweet by Tweet and More!

Many of you have probably already heard about AutodeskCare. Some of you have talked to us on online already. For those of you we haven’t met yet, this is the scoop on what we do, where we do it, and how we work social customer care at Autodesk these days. Read more →

AutoCAD WS Update Coming – Free CAD & DWG Viewer

The AutoCAD WS Team is once again teasing us with this posting on their Facebook Page. https://www.facebook.com/#!/AutoCADWS “First glimpse of the new launch screen for the next release of AutoCAD WS - Coming Soon!“ Read more →

Design, Raised to the Power of the Cloud

During the course of today (and throughout the week) you’ll likely hear us at Autodesk talking about the latest deployment of Autodesk 360 and Autodesk BIM 360. If you’re familiar with the notion of cloud based services, then Autodesk 360 will be a natural way to extend your designs beyond your local desktop. The power of Autodesk 360 starts to compound when you consider that mobile access means that I could collaborate on this new tower concept design while I was making new friends in Kenya. Read more →

Capturing Ancient Remains in Kenya with a Remote Octo-Copter

Jambo! Gonzalo Martinez and myself (Shaan Hurley) are currently in the extremely remote Turkana Basin of Kenya where many of the hominin fossils (our human ancestors) were found along with a great deal of other fossils and tools. We are researching aerial video and photo capture with Louise Leakey using a state of the art eight bladed remote copter mounted with lots of high tech equipment and cameras that we have named the Autodesk Octo-Copter for many exciting potential uses. Read more →

Flying the Autodesk Octo-Copter in a very very very remote region of East Africa.

If you go to the middle of nowhere in East Africa, go North, and turn right, then drive another couple hours in the blazing heat, you will be where I am. Gonzalo Martinez and myself of Autodesk are capturing some of the most remote geography in Africa using a remote controlled eight bladed Octo-Copter. The photos and video are amazing as are the reaction from local nomadic tribe members when they see the copter fly by and they run to... Read more →

Bones of Turkana Documentary

For US readers; please tune in for Bones of Turkana on PBS May 16th, 2012. This is a new documentary about the Leakey's human origins research in Kenya's Turkana Basin: http://t.co/si59ckRu Read more →

New 123D Catch for Windows, Web Hosted, and Apple iPad Available and FREE

Autodesk 123D Catch is a technology where you take photos with your digital camera and then using cloud computing it constructs a textured 3D mesh model. There are three new flavors of this delicious 3D treat - one for the Windows desktop, one for the Apple iPad, and one web hosted version you run in a browser. Read more →

Google Drive Features Autodesk’s AutoCAD WS & Pixlr as Native Apps

It was only recently that the impending and anxiously awaited product Sketchbook Ink was shown on the Apple main stage launch for the iPad 3. Now Both Pixlr and AutoCAD WS are basking in the limelight glow of the Google Drive launch. Read more →

AutoCAD WS Mobile 1.4 What's New Video

New features include 3D viewing, GPS support and remote plotting. Download now for iOS from the App Store here: http://aucad.ws/wDQhps Download now for Android from the Android Market here: http://aucad.ws/wmWbKS Read more →

AutoCAD WS Update Coming

AutoCAD WS allows the viewing, markup, and sharing of DWG files among architects, designers and engineers, as well as non-CAD professionals. AutoCAD WS is available for free on the web, on mobile devices with AutoCAD WS mobile, and as a native desktop Mac App in the Mac App Store. Currently the developers are hard at work on the next update of the free AutoCAD WS and AutoCAD WS mobile. The new update will include many new features like new 3D viewing, GPS Integration, and Print to Plot with HP ePrint. Read more →

Hacker Spaces – Come Meet Your Makers

This week I had the opportunity to visit the Noisebridge Hacker Space in San Francisco with an Autodesk colleague Gregory Miller and Alex Peake. Read more →

Create a 3D Model of Your Head

I wanted to show how anyone can create a 3D model of themselves or a person they know using a digital camera, free Autodesk software, and a 3D printer. Read more →

Autodesk Does Not Support SOPA

Autodesk applauds Congress for recognizing the threat that software piracy poses to our economy, but we cannot support SOPA as written. Read more →