2012 Expiration Dates for Technology Previews

As I have mentioned before, some technology previews are like milk cartons. They have expiration dates on them. When a technology preview expires, the technology preview no longer operates. A preview has a time bomb in it that makes it stop working on a particular date. We do this so there is a sense of urgency to try a technology preview and get back to us. Our customers are busy people, and without this, they would just say “I’ll get to that later.” When a technology preview expires, any data that has been created by it continues to be valid. It’s just that the data cannot be edited using the technology preview since the preview does not run anymore. Certainly new data can’t be created either. This approach allows us to get early feedback on the general idea, user interface, performance characteristics, and general correctness of the results associated with a technology preview.

Here is a list of active Autodesk Labs technology previews and their associated expiration dates. The list is sorted by expiration date - so act fast if you want to provide feedback on these technology previews before they retire or graduate.

	Inventor Fusion Technology Preview unite direct and parametric workflows Windows: May 1, 2012 OS X: January 1, 2013
	LaunchPad for Product Design Suite improve your product design workflow May 30, 2012
	Vault Plugin for Microstation manage files with one solution May 31, 2012
	Project Scandium for Moldflow Insight enhance your injection molding prediction power June 17, 2012
	eTransmit for Revit easily share your building information models June 30, 2012
	Bridge Modeler for AutoCAD Civil 3D create bridges from Civil 3D objects July 1, 2012
	Project Geppetto for 3ds Max/Design easily add people to your 3ds Max scenes July 1, 2012
	Project Spark get started with BIM July 7, 2012
	Corridor Solids for AutoCAD Civil 3D generate solids for real-world civil objects August 1, 2012
	Point Cloud Feature Extraction for Revit easily go from scanned point clouds to BIM August 1, 2012
	Project Silverstar for AutoCAD Civil 3D optimize your road alignments August 1, 2012
	Interactive Terrain Shaping for AutoCAD Civil 3D / AutoCAD Map 3D design parking lots, berms, swale, ponds, spillways, and more August 30, 2012
	Project Falcon see your designs in a wind tunnel August 31, 2012
	Project Vasari conceptual design and analysis for buildings August 31, 2012
	Project Galileo Online infrastructure modeling with the help of the cloud September 30, 2012
	Project Inspire for AutoCAD Map 3D Find, bind, and publish INSPIRE compliant metadata December 31, 2012
	Project Parsec for AutoCAD Map 3D easily import GIS data December 31, 2012
	River Analysis Extension for AutoCAD Civil 3D / AutoCAD Map 3D model/analyze rivers for infrastructure planning and design projects December 31, 2012
	Mesh Enabler for Inventor work with imported meshes in Inventor January 31, 2013

Each development team is focused on a technology preview for a project interval. While they are, they want the feedback and the ability to make a decision so they can continue development of the technology or quickly move on to something else. We appreciate it when we debut technology previews, people try them right away, and provide us with an up or down vote. Your experience shapes the future of our technology indeed.

Sniffing the cartons to see what can still be tasted is alive in the lab.