Tomorrow is the day America celebrates its independence. As they have been all week, our Autodesk offices in the Unites States are closed today. Tomorrow we will spend the day with family, eat hot dogs, and watch fireworks at night. Regardless of what country you are in, working or not, enjoy the day.
Eddy Kuo is one of our Autodesk Labs developers. Eddy has worked a great deal on multi-touch. Eddy worked with Hans Kellner to integrate the multi-touch capabilities into our demo version of Autodesk Design Review. Many of you have gotten your hands on this version at the past two Autodesk Universities. If I had to put my finger on it, I'd say that based on his research and development, Eddy is interested in human-computer interaction in general - not just multi-touch. So it was no surprise to me last week when Eddy shared some of his thoughts on brain-based interaction with computers.
Stepping into Future of Human Computer Interface NOW with Brain Computing
To see that this is not total science fiction, there are two companies selling brain–computing hardware, for more info please visit:
And games that are currently using this technology:
Thanks Eddy. Technologies like this would really put the "aid" in computer aided design. Thinking about our friend, the brain, is alive in the lab.
Today is our third day of vacation, so I can't fix this right now. When a technology or utility graduates from Labs, I create an entry on the Graduates page:
http://labs.autodesk.com/graduates/
Our graduating class for Labs has outgrown the number of items that are displayed on the graduates page. So currently you can't find a complete list of what has graduated. I do maintain a list of what has graduated on:
http://labs.blogs.com/its_alive_in_the_lab/labs-items-by-application.html
but the hyperlinks on my page are intended to go back to the Graduates page. This way you can get information like date added, date graduated, what application the technology or utility worked with, and where you can get more information. Hopefully I can get this fixed when we get back from our vacation.
Today is our second day of vacation. Yesterday I mentioned how we beefed up our analytics for Project Showroom release 1.0.20. We want to answer some usage questions more precisely. When I look at some of the analytic results for It's Alive in the Lab for this month, I see some interesting data.
Project Showroom has collected metrics from its onset. Build 1.0.20 improved its precision. As you can see from the data collected for this blog, metrics like this can help shape how software as a service applications are developed.
We're on vacation this week.
Today is the first day of our company-wide vacation, so I will be brief. On Friday we released Project Showroom 1.0.20. Recall that Project Showroom is our software as a service approach to kitchen and bathroom design software. You just use your browser to configure a room with items you can actually purchase. Project Showroom uses a bank of computers in the cloud to show you what your choices look like by rendering the room photorealistcally. If you did this yourself on one computer, it would take minutes. With a bank of computers, it takes seconds. Project Showroom is in the technology preview stage, but you get the idea.
Whereas Project Showroom 1.0.19 had some dramatic UI improvements, release 1.0.20 is really "under the hood." Many of you have provided direct feedback to us at labs.showroom@autodesk.com with your thoughts on Project Showroom. We appreciate that. Release 1.0.19 is more about indirect feedback. We have improved our metrics gathering. So that our efforts have not gone to waste, please visit Project Showroom today and take it for a spin:
http://showroom.labs.autodesk.com/
It would be great to see if we can get visits from 6 of the 7 continents. Actually if someone visits from Antarctica, maybe we should send him/her some sort of prize. I am also curious as to what operating systems and browsers people are using. These metrics will help shape the future of Project Showroom. If you would also like to see what an integration of Project Showroom into a manufacturer site might look like, here is a mock-up we did for the K/BIS show in Atlanta for Jenn-Air:
http://jennair.showroom.labs.autodesk.com/
Getting even more analytical is alive in the lab.
"Corps à corps bleu" by Gerard-Fromangert
Isn't technology a beautiful thing? Isn't the community we have formed using a the internet like a family? In response to my posting Need Help Identifying a Painting, I received this email from Gregory Arkin who mans the Revit3D.com blog.
Dear Scott:
I always love a challenge, so after failing at Google image searching for words like silhouette, bicycle, Paris, artwork, etc. for a very long while (thank goodness for Firefox autopager), I decided to go a different route. Instead of searching for the image using Google, I used Google to search for a tool that would be of assistance. I Googled "upload image search," found a website called TinyEye.com, uploaded your image, and came up with five results within 15 seconds:
None of the results were very helpful, and one was a non-existent website, but alas, one did return a clue. The file name had "Gerard-Fromangert" in the name. A little more research uncovered http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%A9rard_Fromanger and there you have it.
"Corps à corps bleu" is the name of the piece of art and it was housed at Paris-Sienne (2003-2006) Centre Beaubourg, Paris
I am not having so much luck finding the availability of reprints, but I'll keep looking. I hope I'm the first to come up with the information for you. It was well worth the effort for the appreciation I have of all you've done in "The Lab." Keep up the great work. I love what you guys are doing.
Good luck finding a copy for your daughter.
Gregory
Thanks Gregory! As this is the kind of investigatory work that Gregory does, you Revit users should check out Revit3D.com to garner the tips and tricks Gregory has unearthed. I'm sure you'll be as grateful as I am.
Appreciating the help from our Labs family is alive in the Lab.
A few semesters ago our daughter studied abroad in France with the ASU honors program. While visiting a museum in Paris, she took a picture of a painting she really liked. I was going to surprise her and try to get a reprint of it, but I do not know the artist nor the name. Can anyone identify it? Please send information to scott.sheppard@autodesk.com. Thanks so much.
Taking some vacation time in 2009
Autodesk is observing a company shutdown next week. With the exception of staff dedicated to manning our critical systems, all United States employees will take the week off with our vacation time. So although it may seem like something's amiss with the RSS feed for this blog, it really just us relaxing. And if you don't get an immediate response to your Autodesk Labs feedback request like you normally do, fear not, we'll reply as soon as we get back. We will return ready for action. We do have Project Cooper and other technologies on deck.
Electrolux kitchen appliances with Behr wall paint
Electrolux kitchen appliances with a different Behr wall paint
Project Showroom is a technology preview that establishes a vision for a service for home furnishing suppliers to enable their customers to visualize their products in real-life room settings. It is our software as a service approach to kitchen design software and bathroom design software. The basis of Project Showroom is photorealistic rendering using a farm of computers that are "in the cloud." Accessibility to numerous computers in the cloud makes solutions like Project Showroom practical. Typical consumers would never buy 120 computers just to see a synthetic photograph rendered in 8 seconds. Normally users have one computer and wait 960 seconds (16 minutes). On the other hand, manufacturers might be willing to rent 120 computers for 8 seconds. Eight seconds later, it could be another user's turn. You get the idea.
A tenant of Project Showroom is photorealism. Consumers and manufacturers have to get the sense that they are experiencing something before it is real. The products are real. The manufacturers are real. The computer rendering looks real. Our Product Manager, Noah Kennedy, was keen to point out how blue wall paint reflections appear on white cabinets in his YouTube video:
The video also features a demonstration we participated in with Jenn-Air at the Kitchen/Bathroom Industry Show in Atlanta.
Keeping it real is alive in the Lab.
Fuse history-based modeling and direct editing like colors in a rainbow
The Autodesk Inventor Fusion Technology Preview allows you to combine parametric modeling with direct model editing. It's the best of both worlds. Based on your location, you can find out for yourself by taking a test drive:
As we did with the Autodesk Inventor LT Technology Preview, to ensure the best experience for those participating, the technology preview is limited to the following geographical locations: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Singapore, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and United States. We hope to expand to other locations in the future. Try it and let us know what you think: labs.fusion@autodesk.com. You have until January 1, 2010 to do so - that's when the executable for the technology preview expires. You can get started by watching some videos on YouTube (or its alternative for locations where YouTube access in unavailable):
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At this point in the technology preview, having Autodesk Inventor 2010 and the Autodesk Inventor Fusion Technology Preview on your system lets you experience the best of both worlds. The Autodesk Inventor Fusion Technology Preview is a 32-bit application that will install and execute in a 32-bit or 64-bit environment. Exploring new ways to design mechanical parts and assemblies is alive in the lab.
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