Scott Adams, the guy who creates the Dilbert cartoons, has a blog. Today he posted an entry about the perfect room.
Autodesk Homestyler is our web-based solution for home design. Many of you many remember it as Project Dragonfly when it was on Autodesk Labs.
I coudln't help but think if Homestyler would be the pefect tool to design the perfect room.
Furniture arrangement is alive in the lab.
"Sometimes I don't know what to feel
Everything I thought that I knew starts to look so unreal"
— Todd Rundgren, 1973.
Project Pinocchio is our technology preview of the ability to create human characters using just a browser. You can learn more about in on the Autodesk Labs site:
Recently there have been two developments that I want to call your attention to.
Both Director and Star
Technical Evangelist, Brian Pene, did a really interesting thing. He created a character using Project Pinocchio. He exported his character, including its skeletal structure, to a Maya file and downloaded that file to his computer. Along with this he also installed Faceshift (get the trial version) which allows a Kinect device to track a person's face. Brian trained Faceshift to recognize his face by by making various facial expressions in front of an Xbox Kinect to match those displayed in Faceshift. So instead of having a computer camera track based on a fiducial marker, the tracking was based on Brian's face. The result is that Brian could control the skeleton of his Project Pinocchio character just by moving his face. Here's a YouTube video explaining the process.
Brian's files can be downloaded from my Buzzsaw site:
Brian notes that to load the fsmap file after loading the Maya model go to File > Load Retargeting… from FaceShift Maya Plugin menu and select the fsmap file provided in the zip above. It will only work for the Pinocchio model provided but may work with others provided they are not too different topologically or in rig/joint positions.
Technologist for the Office of the CTO, Shaan Hurley, postulated how fun Brian's approach would be to read a bed-time story to one's children:
Brian shared some resources for those who want to get started with Faceshift. There are Faceshift plug-ins for both Autodesk Maya and Autodesk MotionBuilder. There are video tutorials for Faceshift installation, set up, and working with the Maya or MotionBuilder plug-ins:
The example Faceshift datasets are great for those who wish to try without a Kinect or other supported 3D sensor
With this technology, now anyone can be both actor and director — you can be both Sam Worthington and James Cameron from Avatar.
The Outer Limits
A second interesting thing was accomplished by Software Architect, Kean Walmsley. Augmented reality has been around for a while. Normally augmented reality is used to replace a fiducial marker with a virtual object. A popular use case is to see a building in the context of other buildings or see how a piece of furniture might look in one's own home. In Kean's case, instead of inserting a building or piece of furniture into the scene, he inserted a character generated by Project Pinocchio.
In the 1960's there was an American TV show called The Outer Limits. In one episode, "The Galaxy Being," a character from a TV screen comes out into the real world. This reminds me of that.
So both Brian Pene and Kean Walmsley have done something unique. Check 'em out.
Virtual people are alive in the lab.
I work out of our office on One Market Street in San Francisco. My standup-desk is right across from our Gallery at One Market. One of our newer exhibits is called Powers of Design. It was first featured at the Technology Entertainment & Design (TED) conference last year. Powers of Design depicts the size of everything from the inconceivably small to the mind-blowingly large. I thought I'd cover the exhibit elements, one at a time, over the next few months. I started small and am working my way up.
Image courtesy of The LEGO Group.
10-2 MAGNITUDE
0.01 m
1 Centimeter
LEGO
3.2 Centimeters
Sometimes it takes grown-up engineering to bring childhood favorites to life. The art of crafting small individual LEGO pieces into elaborate play sets or large-scale models for LEGO theme parks, retail locations, and special events, often requires engineering analysis that can sometimes resemble a very adult architectural project.
Using 3D modeling software to explore a variety of imaginative design concepts, LEGO designers and engineers turn their ideas into brick-by-brick construction schematics so they can determine their structural feasibility before fabrication—and ultimately a whole lot of fun.
Lego Dinosaur in the Autodesk Gallery
Thanks to Global Content Manager, Matt Tierney, for the images and text that comprise the exhibit element. This is just one of the many exhibits in the gallery at One Market in San Francisco. The gallery is open to the public on Wednesdays from 12 pm to 5 pm, and admission is free. Visit us.
Previous posts on this topic include:
Future blog posts will cover:
Measurement is alive in the lab.
The Autodesk Research team released a Project Chronicle update today that corrects the problem where the audio/video can get out of sync when removing a section. AutoCAD and Revit users who wish to make more powerful training videos can download the technology preview at:
While we are at it, here's a new video:
Updates are alive in the lab.
I live in Alameda, California. Our electricity is supplied by Alameda Municipal Power (AMP) — a department of the City of Alameda. AMP has a great program called Alameda Green. Here is their description of it.
If you live in Alameda or have a business here, you can sign up for AMP's voluntary renewable power program, Alameda Green. Join your friends and neighbors by choosing 100% renewable energy sources from newly constructed wind and solar facilities located within California and western states.
Your participation in Alameda Green makes the air cleaner by avoiding greenhouse gas emissions. It also supports the growth of renewable energy facilities and clean tech jobs. To ensure your enrollment contributes to this growth, AMP purchases Green-e Energy certified renewable energy exclusively from new wind and solar projects built within the last 15 years.
Alameda Green's supply is 20% California solar and 80% western wind.
The avergae Alameda household reduces its carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 5,990 pounds a year by participating in Alameda Green for an extra $6 per month (rate varies depending on monthly usage).
That's the CO2 equivalent to taking your car off the road for 6 months. Larger businesses can also participate in increments of $15 per month for each 1,000 kWh block.
Enrollment is simple, voluntary, and you may cancel at any time. Just call 510-748-3900 or email green@alamedamp.com. More information is available on the AMP website.
Recently I signed up for this program and proudly received my first bill:
This is a small price to pay to help consume energy in a more sustainable way.
Electricity is alive in the lab.
When I was a software development manager working on the WHIP! Netscape Navigator browser plug-in that allowed non-CAD users to view DWF files, Jason Pratt was my marketing guy. Jason's job was to lay out the road map of features related to DWF files. I was a fan of getting feature requirements directly from the Autodesk discussion forums. We would argue over what to do next, and as part of that, I would accuse him of being part of "the dark side." By the way, Jason is responsible for DWF files having a page size determined by AutoCAD paperspace layouts. This point of view opened the door to features like the Sheet Set Manager and DWF files. At the time, I thought Jason's idea was dumb, because I considered DWF files as glorified JPG files that users could zoom in on, and they would not pixelate. The way Jason envisioned DWF went beyond the zooming. He was right. I was wrong.
So imagine my dismay when I was asked to review some books related to corporate branding. Branding — ew, part of the dark side. Using getAbstract I read summaries of:
Rather than review them individually, I will just combine them into the categories of IMAGINE, DESIGN, and CREATE which reflect our company motto. If this division is good enough for building automobiles, buildings, bridges, or movies, it should certainly apply to building a brand.
IMAGINE what you want your brand to convey
DESIGN a brand with customers in mind
CREATE a brand as the sum of interactions with your company
My background is software engineering. I was brought up on lessons like make coding modules of functional strength and share information among modules by passing parameters. Organizing modules around objects instead of function is preferable since the objects tend to change more frequently than the functions. So this marketing stuff is all new to me. I am used to the light of programming.
Branding is alive in the lab.
Here's a 2 minute video:
Evan Atherton has the office across from mine.
Here is a case before/after the speaker and lights are added.
To quote Debby Boone: "You light up my life."
Light and sound are alive in the lab.
I work out of our office on One Market Street in San Francisco. My standup-desk is right across from our Gallery at One Market. One of our newer exhibits is called Powers of Design. It was first featured at the Technology Entertainment & Design (TED) conference last year. Powers of Design depicts the size of everything from the inconceivably small to the mind-blowingly large. I thought I'd cover the exhibit elements, one at a time, over the next few months. I started small and am working my way up.
Image courtesy of Ulysse Nardin.
10-3
MAGNITUDE
0.001 m
1 Millimeter
Sonata Silicium Watch Components
2 Millimeters
We’ve arrived at a scale where we can really see what we’re looking at—if we squint. In this case, the miniscule (about a millimeter) parts of the world’s first mechanical 24-hour alarm watch with a countdown display, the Sonata Silicium from Ulysse Nardin. Comprising more than 400 of these parts, this mechanical marvel had to be precisely designed and assembled to ensure the elements would work in delicate concert.
Designers used 3D modeling to visualize the intricate assembly of gears and springs, enabling them to spot and eliminate even the slightest interferences early in the design process, thereby cutting development time in half.
Hey buddy, do you have the time? But of course,... Actually I blogged about the Sonata watch on my birthday in 2010. It's amazing that they can make pieces so small and even more amazing that they are crafted precisely enough to tell correct time.
Thanks to Global Content Manager, Matt Tierney, for the images and text that comprise the exhibit element. This is just one of the many exhibits in the gallery at One Market in San Francisco. The gallery is open to the public on Wednesdays from 12 pm to 5 pm, and admission is free. Visit us.
Previous posts on this topic include:
Future blog posts will cover:
Measurement is alive in the lab.
Design Night is an events program at the Autodesk Gallery. At each event, guests explore a different theme — such as biomimicry, light, or robotics — that challenges the conventionally narrow definition of design. The theme is reflected in all aspects of the event, from the activities guests enjoy to the food they eat to the music they hear. The result is a fun and fascinating venue for exploration, networking, and the exchange of ideas.
On Thursday, April 4, 6-10 p.m., the Autodesk Gallery in San Francisco will host another Design Night: Robots!, where we will explore the amazing world of robotics. From robots that vacuum floors and weld cars to those that diffuse bombs and fight cancer cells, the field of robotics has never been more exciting. So get your autonomous self over to Design Night and:
Hear from an all-star panel including:
Interact with a veritable galaxy of robots in our robot science fair
See SumoBots wrestle.
So come to Design Night if you're curious about robots and what they mean for the future of design. Also enjoy an open bar, food, activities, and much, much more so...um...hurry! Registration is required and ticket pricing is as follows:
To attend the event:
Admission fees include admission to the presentation, as well as an open bar, food, music, and hands-on activities. The last three Design Nights have sold out in advance!
Rosie Jetson is alive in the lab.
I work out of our office on One Market Street in San Francisco. My standup-desk is right across from our Gallery at One Market. One of our newer exhibits is called Powers of Design. It was first featured at the Technology Entertainment & Design (TED) conference last year. Powers of Design depicts the size of everything from the inconceivably small to the mind-blowingly large. I thought I'd cover the exhibit elements, one at a time, over the next few months. I started small and am working my way up.
Microelectromechanical components magnified 700X.
10-4
MAGNITUDE
0.000,1 m
100 Micrometers
Microelectromechanical Systems
200 Micrometers
The “human” scale begins with the micrometer, and nothing says human like machines — in this case, very, very small machines. Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) are the technology of tiny mechanical devices.
MEMS consist of components 1 to 100 micrometers in size (0.001 to 0.1 mm), with the larger devices ranging between 20 micrometers to a millimeter. They include a central unit that processes data and several components that interact with the outside world, such as microsensors.
MEMS became practical once they could be fabricated using modified semiconductor fabrication technologies, and include applications like accelerometers in cars, video game controllers, and cell phones as well as microphones in portable devices.
Think about it. These things are only 10 times the size of a grain of sand.
Thanks to Global Content Manager, Matt Tierney, for the images and text that comprise the exhibit element. This is just one of the many exhibits in the gallery at One Market in San Francisco. The gallery is open to the public on Wednesdays from 12 pm to 5 pm, and admission is free. Visit us.
Previous posts on this topic include:
Future blog posts will cover:
Measurement is alive in the lab.
It's another Project Pinocchio movie!
I just got another video for Project Pinocchio and placed it on the site. Project Pinocchio is our free technology preview for creating human characters using just a web browser. Once you have them just like you want, you can export them to an FBX file on your computer and load that file into other programs. This video is an example of doing with with Autodesk MotionBuilder.
If you want to get started for yourself, see the Autodesk Labs web site:
http://labs.autodesk.com/technologies/pinocchio
You literraly can create a character is 5 minutes. It's just plain fun. Please try it and share your feedback.
You can provide feedback via email, discussion forum, or comments on YouTube or this blog posting:
Building characters and motion are alive in the lab.
Technology preview users have been given an extension.
Project Falcon started out as an add-on for Alias software, and was then made available as a stand-alone program. It was then rolled out as add-ons for AutoCAD, Inventor, and Revit. Whereas the add-ons do not expire until August 30 of this year, the original stand-alone expired on March 15. So the team opted to update the stand-alone version to continue to collect feedback. Many users compare the performance of the stand-alone version with the add-ons. For users with the expired version, you can download a new one from the Autodesk Labs site:
// Download Project Falcon via Autodesk Labs
Based on an email I received from Design Lifecycle & Simulation team member, Jon den Hartog, this update includes the following:
As always you can provide your feedback in a variety of ways.
In addition to these, the team is conducting a survey:
A technology preview extension is alive in the lab.
On Thursday, Pi Day since it was March 14, the DesignScript team provided me with an update of the technology preview. Here is what Senior Principal Engineer, Luke Church, had to say about it:
A faster DesignScript
The existing versions of DesignScript are due to expire at the end of March, so it’s time to extend that and share some of our latest improvements with you. There’s a new build available, build 0.4.43.6798, that will add another 6 months to the expiry date, as well as a number of other improvements.
The big one is that DesignScript is now a good bit faster. As an example, lets stack some bricks like this.
In the previous build of DesignScript this took my laptop 5729ms. In the build now available it takes 3775ms. That’s a speedup of 1.5 times, or 34% faster!
The exact speedup will differ based on properties of the model. Our performance test suites show 30% improvement is pretty typical, with some very compute intensive models improving by as much as 98% (our implementation of the N-Body benchmark)
We’re by no means done making DesignScript faster, or adding new features. We generally don’t like to talk about what we’re going to be doing in the future, we’d prefer to just give it to you when we’re ready for feedback, but every now and again a hint of a new feature slips through the net before its ready…
In some circumstances, you’ll see an ‘Import Data’ menu item like the above. For now, it inserts some code that doesn't do much. So please just ignore it, and take it as a teaser of exciting things to come.
You can find the full release notes for the build here.
Enjoy the new, faster, DesignScript. And as always, do get in touch; we’d love to hear from you.
Thanks Luke. You can check out the new release for yourself via the Autodesk Labs site:
// Download DesignScript for AutoCAD 2013
Technology improvement based on feedback is alive in the lab.
I work out of our office on One Market Street in San Francisco. My standup-desk is right across from our Gallery at One Market. One of our newer exhibits is called Powers of Design. It was first featured at the Technology Entertainment & Design (TED) conference last year. Powers of Design depicts the size of everything from the inconceivably small to the mind-blowingly large. I thought I'd cover the exhibit elements, one at a time, over the next few months. I started small and am working my way up.
Photograph of quartz crystal sand grains fused with orange-colored mineral. Image courtesy of sandgrains.com.
10-5
MAGNITUDE
0.000,01 m
10 Micrometers
Sand
62.5 Micrometers
Compared to what we’ve seen thus far, sand is positively huge. Ranging in diameter from 62.5 micrometers to 2 millimeters, sand particles come in a variety of colors and textures, depending on local rock sources, from fine to coarse and bright white to near black.
Formed when rock is reduced by weathering, sand particles are further degraded by acidic rainfall and water or chemicals from organisms. These particles are then easily stirred by wind and water, causing additional reduction by abrasion. Eventually they are transported to form dunes, river banks, beaches, and sometimes even castles.
After reading this excerpt, a day at the beach will never seem the same.
Thanks to Global Content Manager, Matt Tierney, for the images and text that comprise the exhibit element. This is just one of the many exhibits in the gallery at One Market in San Francisco. The gallery is open to the public on Wednesdays from 12 pm to 5 pm, and admission is free. Visit us.
Previous posts on this topic include:
Future blog posts will cover:
Measurement is alive in the lab.
An announcement from Autodesk Research...
Software Development Manager, Thomas White, provided me with an updated Project Chronicle installer. I made it available for download via the Autodesk Labs web site. The Autodesk research team then made the corresponding changes to the Project Chronicle web site, so we're good to go. Recall that Project Chronicle is a free technology preview from Autodesk Research that makes it easy for AutoCAD (all flavors) and Revit users to capture, share, and learn from software workflows. Project Chronicle consists of a recording utility to capture recordings, and a web site that displays the recordings as Chronicles, interactive video tutorials.
In addition to new features (i.e., delete video sections, embed chronicles in your pages, share chronicles via groups, download your videos), this update contains some defect corrections based on your feedback. The Autodesk Research team is eager to continue to get your feedback on this technology. They would love to hear your stories of how you showed someone else what to do. There are a variety of ways to provide feedback.
eLearning is alive in the lab.
Yesterday Product Line Manager, Chris Andrews, gave me a new video for Project Pinocchio entitled "The Basics." I added it to the Autdoesk Labs site.
I followed the basics, used Google Chrome version 25.0.1364.172, and made a few characters of my own.
This is just really fun. You too can generate your own human characters using just a web browser.
You can provide feedback via email, discussion forum, or comments on YouTube or this blog posting:
Characterization is alive in the lab.
People often email me to ask what type of feedback are we looking for in our technology previews. As these previews are early in their life cycles, we are interested in knowing if the concept itself is a good idea, did it work correctly for you, and how was the performance. We like hearing both the good and the bad. Here are some examples of the types of feedback we receive.
"Wow! I love Project Chronicle. I teach at a community college and this is the best tool ever, EVER!! I can record the basic tools we use for each exercise and post it with the directions. I bet my students will love it even more. Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!!!!"
Kari C.
"Is there any other easy way of dealing with shared coordinates or a step by step guide that may help. It's one thing I always struggle getting my head around and the BIM Coordinator for helped alot."
Steve L.
"I like Inventor Fusion, but it is not usable on a high resolution monitor.
CAD nowadays is 27" at 2560x1440 and your tree has letters of about
1 mm height. This causes pain in the eyes after half an hour, so after
half an hour I am done.
Is it possible to increase the fonts of the user interface?
I already tried to change the Windows fonts and scaling but it just does
not increase the size of the tree text."
Richard W.
"It seems like the standalone [Project] Falcon is burning up my RAM chips. Last time I ran the standalone version, it was running fine. I was about to get a screen shot when the air streamers disappeared. Real quickly I felt the RAM chip, and it was hotter than a pistol."
C.B.
"I've tried using the 2d to 3d tool for Inventor over the years, but I've never been successful in applying it. Most of the applications that I've tried it on were odd shaped machined parts and sheet metal parts related to aircraft construction. After struggling with using it, I've found that it has been easier (and faster) to redraw the parts from scratch."
Jon G.
"Hi, great feature, this feature recognition for Inventor thing!
I'd like to see all sheet metal features recognizable. We get all the data from our customers as CAD files, and need to unfold sheet metals, often
unclean ones. Would be great to be able to click all faces and turn them into sheet metal features, connect them with bends, or even recognize rolled contours!"
Markus R.
"Sometimes if I have parts with holes, and I want to block in an assembly as I go round to each part and open, I perform detect holes and press accept, and [Inventor Simplification] will crash. This happens on different parts each time I do this, not the same part."
Sandhup
"...thanks for all your hard work as [Project Basejump for AutoCAD Map 3D] really is a great product! Would love to see integration with contour data and topography as well as parcel lines as well!"
Paul M.
Please keep those discussion forum posts and email messages coming in.
e-Listening is alive in the lab.
I got this email today:
Hi Chris, Christopher, and Scott,
We are in the final 6 days of the autoPACK HIV Visualization contest.
Here is a movie with killer zoom effects created by a Max user
Later tonight I will be releasing fancy Lipid Bilayers... part of the philosophy of the software and contest is that autoPACK is forever dynamic with new models and features being added all of the time, so people will have the chance to add some fancy bells and whistles in the 11th hour.
Thanks,
Graham Johnson PhD
UCSF Fellow
For a discussion of the relative sizes of HIV and red blood cells, see these two blog articles:
The autoPACK HIV Visualization contest runs until March 18. You can learn more about it at: autopack.cgsociety.org. For those who wish to learn more about Project Sci-Viz:
// Visit Project Scit-Viz for 3ds Max on Autodesk Labs
Competition is alive in the lab (but not for much longer).
I work out of our office on One Market Street in San Francisco. My standup-desk is right across from our Gallery at One Market. One of our newer exhibits is called Powers of Design. It was first featured at the Technology Entertainment & Design (TED) conference last year. Powers of Design depicts the size of everything from the inconceivably small to the mind-blowingly large. I thought I'd cover the exhibit elements, one at a time, over the next few months. I started small and am working my way up.
3D rendering of streaming red blood cells.
10-6
MAGNITUDE
0.000,001 meters
1 Micrometer
Red Blood Cells
7 Micrometers
Our fantastic voyage (get it?) continues with red blood cells. The most common type of cell (representing 1/4 of the body’s cells) and the primary means of delivering oxygen to tissues via the circulatory system, red blood cells absorb oxygen in the lungs (or gills if you happen to breathe that way) and release it while squeezing through our capillaries.
In humans, 2.4 million cells are produced every second, developing in the bone marrow and circulating for 100–120 days before being broken down and recycled in the body. Each circulation of the body takes about 20 seconds.
Thanks to Global Content Manager, Matt Tierney, for the images and text that comprise the exhibit element. This is just one of the many exhibits in the gallery at One Market in San Francisco. The gallery is open to the public on Wednesdays from 12 pm to 5 pm, and admission is free. Visit us.
Previous posts on this topic include:
Future blog posts will cover:
Measurement is alive in the lab.
From their about page: "Sketchfab is a web service to publish interactive 3D content online in real-time without [requiring users who want to view your 3D content to download/install] a plugin. The world we live in is in 3D, but the web is still in 2D, and we want to change that. We think your 3D models deserve something better than screen shots or "show reel" videos. That's why we created Sketchfab. We understand 3D and bring it to the web."
This month's free ADN plugin was created by Klaas Nienhuis. Both Klaas and Sketchfab are Autodesk Developer Network (ADN) members. The plug-in can be used to publish your models from 3ds Max and show your 3d models directly on Sketchfab — an online platform for viewing 3d models directly in your browser. This is very convenient for communication with clients or presentations. Check it out for yourself:
// Download Sketchfab for 3ds Max via Autodesk Labs
One of our ulterior motives for providing the source code with the plugins of the month is that we want you to see how easy it is to extend our design application functionality to specifically suit your needs. So check out the code as well as use the precompiled binaries for 64-bit 3ds Max. With a little bit of fiddling, you may make it compatible with the 32-bit version. As always, feel free to continue to share your thoughts with us at labs.plugins@autodesk.com.
3D viewing is alive in the lab.
Autodesk Labs is hosted by servers in the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud. We had a glitch this morning when we created a new Amazon instance. We have learned a valuable lesson from this experience and are putting procedures in place so this doesn't happen again. Thanks for your continued support of our technology previews.
Project Factory.Modz() was our Physics Based technology preview for Factory Animation that enabled users to bring their machine line layouts to life and clearly articulate the working intent of the layout to their clients and stakeholders. It helped users to visually communicate their ideas by animating the movement of material and people inside their facility. It was easy to use, did not require CAD expertise, and users could be up and running creating their first animation in less than 5 minutes. The technology preview has ended. The add-on ceased operation on February 28.
Thanks to everyone who downloaded the technology preview.
and provdied feedback via email and the discussion forums.
Retirement partying is alive in the lab.
The Autodesk Labs site is down. I have contacted our teammates who maintain the hardware. We will get it back up as soon as possible. It's been so long, I can't even remember the last time this happened. I apologize for the hassle and thank you for your continued interest in our technology previews.
I work out of our office on One Market Street in San Francisco. My standup-desk is right across from our Gallery at One Market. One of our newer exhibits is called Powers of Design. It was first featured at the Technology Entertainment & Design (TED) conference last year. Powers of Design depicts the size of everything from the inconceivably small to the mind-blowingly large. I thought I'd cover the exhibit elements, one at a time, over the next few months. I started small and am working my way up.
3D rendering of the HIV virus.
10-7
MAGNITUDE
0.000,000,1 m
100 Nanometers
HIV Virus
120 Nanometers
We truly wish that the HIV virus did not exist on any scale, but to the world’s great sadness this global pandemic resides at 10-7. Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a lentivirus (of the retrovirus family) that causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), a condition in humans in which progressive failure of the immune system allows life-threatening opportunistic infections and cancers to thrive.
HIV is different in structure from other retroviruses however. Roughly spherical in shape, it has a diameter of about 120 nm—about 60 times smaller than a red blood cell—and is large for a virus. There is currently no cure for HIV infection. Treatment consists of highly active antiretroviral therapy with promise shown in the area of stem cell transplantation, which remains an investigational area of treatment.
So the HIV virus is 10 times larger than a nano bio-robot that in the future could be used to fight it but 10 times smaller than a blood cell it could infect — makes sense. It's like the story of David and Goliath on two levels with the smaller foe hurting the cell, and hopefully the smaller robot killing the virus.
Thanks to Global Content Manager, Matt Tierney, for the images and text that comprise the exhibit element. This is just one of the many exhibits in the gallery at One Market in San Francisco. The gallery is open to the public on Wednesdays from 12 pm to 5 pm, and admission is free. Visit us.
Previous posts on this topic include:
Future blog posts will cover:
Measurement is alive in the lab.
We will continue to offer desktop applications bundled into Suites for years to come; however, eventually you are going to want to do everything from your mobile phone or tablet device. Yes we could port our powerful applications to iPhones and the wide variety of flavors of Android devices, attempting to account for the particulars of each one, or we can make our applications available as services from servers in the cloud with lots of CPU power and memory suited to the job. As a step in this direction, the Media & Entertainment (M&E) division would like you to try your hand at character generation using a web-based solution and tell us what you think. No download. No install. Just a web browser.
Project Pinocchio (one N, two C's -- I had to look it up on Wikipedia) is our technology preview that leverages Autodesk's powerful 3D design and animation tools so you can create fully-rigged custom 3D characters. You design a creation of your own or modify existing stock characters using a variety of pre-defined body types, facial features, and clothing styles for inclusion in 3D games, animations, and scenes. You can create, customize, and download your very own rigged 3D characters from a catalog of over 100 body types, outfits, hairstyles, and physical attributes in a few simple steps.
// Try Project Pinocchio via Autodesk Labs
Once you create a character, you can use it in a variety of Autodesk modeling tools (e.g., Maya, 3ds Max, MotionBuilder) to create imagery and movies. You do this by exporting your creation from the Project Pinocchio web site to an FBX or native design file.
You can provide feedback via email, discussion forum, or comments on YouTube or this blog posting:
Web-based boys made from wood are now alive in the lab.
I work out of our office on One Market Street in San Francisco. My standup-desk is right across from our Gallery at One Market. One of our newer exhibits is called Powers of Design. It was first featured at the Technology Entertainment & Design (TED) conference last year. Powers of Design depicts the size of everything from the inconceivably small to the mind-blowingly large. I thought I'd cover the exhibit elements, one at a time, over the next few months. I started small and am working my way up. This is my eighth post on this topic — each one featuring an item 10 times larger than the preceding one.
Image created by Campbell Strong, Dr. Shawn Douglas, and Dr. Gael McGill using Molecular Maya and CADnano.
10-8
MAGNITUDE
0.000,000,01 m
10 Nanometers
Cancer Fighting Nano Robot
20 Nanometers
Think what you’ve seen so far is cool? One word—robots. Need we say more? But not just any robots; nano robots. Some incredible things are happening at the nanoscale, like DNA origami, the nanoscale folding of DNA to create various shapes and 3D structures.
CADnano is a software tool used by scientists to accelerate the creation and modification of DNA origami designs. One of the most exciting potential applications of this technology is the creation of agents at the nanoscale, such as transport systems (or robots if you will) to interface with biological systems to address medical challenges. Or to put it a different way, to deliver lethal doses of medication to baddies like cancer cells. In other words, killer robots. How cool is that? Based on differences in DNA structure, the killer robots only attack cancerous cells and leave the normal cells alone.
In the future, treating cancer by blasting all of our cells with radiation to kill the bad ones and only slightly damage the good ones will seem barbaric. It will be like attending to one's lawn by individually pulling each weed versus spraying the entire lawn with weed killer. In the future, before a doctor writes a patient a prescription, the first thing he will do is collect a sample of his DNA by swabbing the inside of his cheek. The pharmacy will then craft the medicine specifically for the patient.
Thanks to Global Content Manager, Matt Tierney, for the images and text that comprise the exhibit element. This is just one of the many exhibits in the gallery at One Market in San Francisco. The gallery is open to the public on Wednesdays from 12 pm to 5 pm, and admission is free. Visit us.
Previous posts on this topic include:
Future blog posts will cover:
Measurement is alive in the lab.
Process Sim was our technology preview of a discrete event simulation tool that helped users analyze their processes and how they work. Users could build a logical model of their proposed assembly line, factory, or industrial machine, and simulate its operation to identify potential bottlenecks to optimize performance based on design criteria. The technology preview stopped operating on February 28.
Thanks to everyone who participated in the technology preview and provided feedback.
Users who wish to continue helping shape the future of our simulation technologies should get involved in the Autodesk Beta program. You log into the site using your Autodesk Single Sign-on user name and password and indicate which products and services you wish to help test.
Graduation is alive in the lab.
Sheryl, Stephanie, and Danielle
Last year my wife, Sheryl, and I took a cruise on The Rock Boat with my college roommate, Tim, and his wife Marie. We had such a good time we decided to do it again. This time we each brought our twenty-something-year-old daughters so they could hang out together and talk about how cool their parents are. The Rock Boat is hosted by a band called Sister Hazel that has five members. Since the passengers are a key ingredient in the overall experience, the name of the organization that puts on the cruise is called The Sixth Man. A number of artists besides Sister Hazel are featured on the cruises. In general all of these bands' songs are mid-tempo rockers with jangly guitars — not quite folk, not quite country, more of something in-between.
I have some photos from our vacation. You can click on any picture to enlarge it, but my pictures were taken with an old camera. The ones taken by Tim are better. Here are the performances we attended.
Saturday: Before we departed dry land, we attended a pre-sail show at The Stage in Miami.
Native Run
They sometimes sound like Sheryl Crow.
Carbon Leaf
They have an Irish influence.
Sunday: As we boarded the ship, we enjoyed Native Run a second time.
Native Run
Is this a cool ship or what?
Our cabin
Before the first night, we had them push the two twin beds together so our cabin no longer looked like the set of The Dick Van Dyke Show.
We could take in views of Miami as Sister Hazel kicked things off.
Miami sky line
We sailed off after a nice sunset.
Sister Hazel
Ben Rector
He is a funny storyteller as well as a good musician/singer.
Junior Doctor
I purchased their album before the trip.
Saints of Valory
Sometimes they remind me of U2 — other times, The Police.
Monday was our first day on the Norwegian Cruise Line owned island of Great Stirrup Cay. Unfortunately it is an unattractive rock with some white sand and a few palm trees artificially added. Luckily the sun and music made up for the lack of scenery.
Beach
Ingram Hill
I neglected to take a picture. I was in the water.
Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers
Photo from another performance — not the beach.
Then we returned to the boat for more shows.
Will Hoge
Photo from sound check which is done for all to hear. There are no walls between artist and fan on The Rock Boat. The artists go to the beach with us, eat in the same buffets with us, and attend other artists' shows in the audience with the rest of us.
A Rocket to the Moon
Scars on 45
Tony Lucca
My picture came out too crappy to post.
The Dunwells
Tuesday was our second day on the island. I got there early to get us a spot with an unobstructed view.
Beach
Mathew Mayfield
Mathew Mayfield performed a set about lost love, heartache, and other tragedies in a beach setting. I don't get it? Perhaps he should have done a cover of "Cheeseburger in Paradise?"
Bronze Radio Return
Our daughter, Stephanie, really likes this band.
After the beach, we repeated the previous day's pattern and boarded the boat for more shows.
Saints of Valory
Scars on 45
NeedToBreathe
On Wednesday we stayed aboard the ship and were treated to several more wonderful performances.
The Dunwells
Songwriters Session
The singer/songwriters described their inspirations for writing and performed their songs.
Red Wanting Blue
Ben Rector
His song, "Let The Good Times Roll," has a very New Orleans feel to it.
Woodstock '69 (various artists)
Thursday was our last day, and everyone made sure to make the best of it.
Sixthman Session
Six artists and one sound engineer, whom had never met, were isolated together for 48 hours on an earlier cruise. They cowrote 12 songs and recorded 9 of them. They shared their thoughts on the process and performed them live.
Swear and Shake
The Dunwells
Junior Doctor
My pictures were kind of blurry.
A Rocket to the Moon
I had purchased their album before the trip too.
Saints of Valory
Sister Hazel
If you are wondering how one can see so many shows in a day, it's because each show is an hour. That's perfect. Even if you take a chance on listening to a band, and it turns out not to be your favorite, it's only an hour. I could probably even stomach Taylor Swift for only an hour.
As you can see from this picture, the Woodstock '69 performance was held on a night where the theme was the 1960's.
Marie, Sheryl, and Scott dressing the part
Based on my pre-sail homework (made easy by Spotify) and the performances, I came away with some new favorites:
Last year on The Rock Boat XII, I experienced Vertical Horizon for the first time. I really enjoyed their music. When I got back on dry land, I bought 6 of their albums and signed up on Pledge Music to underwrite the recording and release of their next album. So when I like a band, I go all in. As Gavin Jasper, lead singer of Saints of Valory pointed out, "The best thing about Rock Boat is that you can come with one favorite band and go home with another favorite band." Thanks to The Rock Boat XIII, now I have 6 more bands to consider.
Music appreciation is alive in the lab.
Last year my wife, Sheryl, and I took a cruise on The Rock Boat with my college roommate, Tim, and his wife Marie. We had such a good time that we decided to do it again. This time we each brought our twenty-something-year-old daughters so they could hang out together and talk about how cool their parents are.
Last year's Rock Boat Cruise was hosted by Carnival Cruise Lines. This year's cruise was hosted by Norwegian Cruise Lines. Even with the recent publicity regarding Carnival, I can't help but compare the two experiences. Though Tim/Marie and our daughters certainly had a different cabin experience, since I have time to kill on my flights from Fort Lauderdale to Phoenix and Phoenix to Oakland, I thought I would document the pros and cons that Sheryl and I experienced.
Norwegian Cruise Line Pros
Norwegian Cruise Line Cons
So given this comparison, perhaps it would be better to take one's chances with a fire, loss of power, and improper sanitation? What are the odds of that happening to Carnival Cruise Lines twice? Pretty long I'd guess. Luckily we attend these cruises for the music, which we thoroughly enjoyed, and I will happily blog about after sorting through our collection of photographs.
Norwegian customer service is not so alive in the lab.
I work out of our office on One Market Street in San Francisco. My standup-desk is right across from our Gallery at One Market. One of our newer exhibits is called Powers of Design. It was first featured at the Technology Entertainment & Design (TED) conference last year. Powers of Design depicts the size of everything from the inconceivably small to the mind-blowingly large. I thought I'd cover the exhibit elements, one at a time, over the next few months. I started small and am working my way up.
Artist’s rendition of carbon nanotubes.
10-9
MAGNITUDE
0.000,000,001 m
1 Nanometer
Carbon Nanotubes
1 Nanometer
We’re getting bigger now, if you could call one billionth of a meter bigger, and we’re in the realm of carbon nanotubes. Long, cylindrical molecules with walls formed by one-atom-thick sheets of carbon, carbon nanotubes have excellent thermal, mechanical, and electrical properties that make them potentially useful in electronics, optics, and nanotechnology.
Their unique chemical bonding makes them among the strongest and stiffest materials yet discovered. Another promising application is in Kanzius cancer therapy, where nanotubes are inserted around cancerous cells and then excited with radio waves, causing them to heat up and kill the surrounding cells.
Thanks to Global Content Manager, Matt Tierney, for the images and text that comprise the exhibit element. This is just one of the many exhibits in the gallery at One Market in San Francisco. The gallery is open to the public on Wednesdays from 12 pm to 5 pm, and admission is free. Visit us.
Previous posts on this topic include:
Future blog posts will cover:
Measurement is alive in the lab.
I work out of our office on One Market Street in San Francisco. My standup-desk is right across from our Gallery at One Market. One of our newer exhibits is called Powers of Design. It was first featured at the Technology Entertainment & Design (TED) conference last year. Powers of Design depicts the size of everything from the inconceivably small to the mind-blowingly large. I thought I'd cover the exhibit elements, one at a time, over the next few months. I started small and am working my way up.
10-10
MAGNITUDE
0.000,000,000,1 m
100 Picometers
Wavelength of Hard X-rays
100 Picometers
Now to the X-ray, that great detector of secrets. X-radiation is a form of electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength between 0.01 nm (10 picometers) and 10 nm. Upon their discovery, X-rays were given their mysterious name to signify an unknown type of radiation.
X-rays with a wavelength from 10 to 0.10 nm are classified as “soft” and those from about 0.10 to 0.01 nm as “hard,” due to their penetrating abilities. As an entire generation of comic book readers found out when attempting to see … well, you know … when looking at their friends, X-ray glasses employed neither soft or hard radiation, but rather … none.
Thanks to Global Content Manager, Matt Tierney, for the images and text that comprise the exhibit element. This is just one of the many exhibits in the gallery at One Market in San Francisco. The gallery is open to the public on Wednesdays from 12 pm to 5 pm, and admission is free. Visit us.
Previous posts on this topic include:
Future blog posts will cover:
Measurement is alive in the lab.
There's another issue of Innovation Edge, the Autodesk Labs newsletter, available for your perusal. This brief publication highlights technologies and utilities available on Autodesk Labs. Something people don't always know is that technology previews are free. All we ask is that you try them and give us feedback on your experience. This applies to subscription users, non-subscription users, and students.
Our aim is not SPAM anyone to death. Opt-in subscribers only receive 6 email messages in a calendar year — one every other month.
To Subscribe:
Navigate to Autodesk Labs home page.
Click on the Sign In link that appears in the upper right.
Sign in using your Autodesk Single Sign-on user ID and password.
Click on Newsletter link that appears in the upper right after signing in.
Check the box to opt in to receive the newsletter and click on Update.
The Autodesk Labs newsletter sending process will use the email address associated with your Autodesk account. As I mentioned, you will get one email message every other month. There is an unsubscribe link at the bottom of each newsletter. Once click, and you will be dead to me. :-)
As our opt-in page says, thank you for all of the downloads, site visits, email messages, forum postings, blog comments, and social media interactions. By the way, a list of all past newsletters appears on:
http://labs.autodesk.com/newsletters
Electronic delivery is alive in the lab.
I work out of our office on One Market Street in San Francisco. My standup-desk is right across from our Gallery at One Market. One of our newer exhibits is called Powers of Design. It was first featured at the Technology Entertainment & Design (TED) conference last year. Powers of Design depicts the size of everything from the inconceivably small to the mind-blowingly large. I thought I'd cover the exhibit elements, one at a time, over the next few months. I started small and am working my way up.
Artist’s rendition of a fluoride ion comprising an atomic nucleus with orbiting electrons.
10-11
MAGNITUDE
0.000,000,000,01 m
10 Picometers
Fluorine Ion
38 Picometers
Fluorine (atomic number 9) is the lightest element of the halogen column of the periodic table. At standard pressure and temperature, it is a pale yellow gas. Rare in space, fluorine is much more common here on Earth, representing the 13th most abundant element in Earth’s crust.
In its various forms (one of which the familiar fluoride) it is used to enrich uranium, refine aluminum, produce steel, develop Freon and chlorofluorocarbons (ozone-depleting CFCs), and make Teflon—none of which you should brush your teeth with.
Thanks to Global Content Manager, Matt Tierney, for the images and text that comprise the exhibit element. This is just one of the many exhibits in the gallery at One Market in San Francisco. The gallery is open to the public on Wednesdays from 12 pm to 5 pm, and admission is free. Visit us.
Previous posts on this topic include:
Future blog posts will cover:
Measurement is alive in the lab.
On Thursday, March 7, 6-10 p.m., the Autodesk Gallery will host Design Night: Illumination, where we will explore how artists and designers are using light to enhance our lives, from the very practical to the stunningly beautiful. From solar power technology and programmable LEDs to mind-blowing light art, there’s a lot more to light than meets the eye. So bring your sunny disposition to Design Night and experience:
Registration is required and ticket pricing is as follows:
To register for the event, please visit the event registration site.
Admission fees include admission to the presentation, as well as an open bar, food, music, and hands-on activities. Tickets are limited and may sell out in advance, so be sure to get your ticket early. The February Design Night did indeed sell out.
Light is alive in the lab.
I will be on vacation next week. My wife and I will be taking a short cruise on The Rock Boat. This is our second time doing so. We’ll start in Miami and set sail February 24 to March 1 aboard the Norwegian Pearl. Our travels take us to Great Stirrup Cay, a private island. We will rock out to non-stop music at sea all the way there and back, and we’ll have our own 2-day private beach party on the island, complete with even more music.
The musical artists this year include:
Relaxation is alive in the lab.
Some of your are familiar with our IDEAS program.
Our IDEAS program can be described as:
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"Synthetic Biology and Programmable Matter are two emerging design paradigms
that apply computational technologies at the nano scale and beyond. Relatively
uncharted and full of promise, these emerging domains of study will inspire
designers to rethink the way they approach their work as well as reconsider the
nature of the problems they can address. The wildly diverse tools and technologies
will have a broad impact on many industries." Autodesk Fellow, Thomas Wujec, shared his notes with me from a recent IDEAS conference. Enjoy.
Download IDEAS_05_Infographic_Synthetic_Biology.pdf (5610.4K) |
Thanks Thomas.
Ideas are alive in the lab.
It's back on Labs. The Moldflow team provided me with new installers for an updated technology preview of Project Scandium. This update extends the preview to August 17, 2013, so the team can continue to get feedback. I posted them for download and updated the site.
// Download Project Scandium via Autodesk Labs
Recall that Project Scandium is our technology preview that extends simulation capabilities with new capabilities. You are encouraged to try them out and provide feedback:
The technology preview relies on Moldflow Insight 2013 licenses and requires the Moldflow Insight and Synergy 2013 product keys and serial numbers.
Resurrection is alive in the lab.
I work out of our office on One Market Street in San Francisco. My standup-desk is right across from our Gallery at One Market. One of our newer exhibits is called Powers of Design. It was first featured at the Technology Entertainment & Design (TED) conference last year. Powers of Design depicts the size of everything from the inconceivably small to the mind-blowingly large. I thought I'd cover the exhibit elements, one at a time, over the next few months. I started small and am working my way up. On Monday we talked about the size of the nothing space that exists between the nucleus of an atom and its electrons. Now we're jumping up in magnitude to a gamma ray. Whoo hoo!
Artist’s rendition of gamma ray.
10-12
MAGNITUDE
0.000,000,000,001 meters
1 Picometer
Gamma Rays
Less than 10 Picometers
Long beloved by writers of science fiction and comic books, gamma rays have been responsible for everything from mutant lobsters to super powers. But gamma rays are actually quite prevalent in our lives. As electromagnetic radiation of high frequency and short wavelength, they can be produced in a variety of ways, including supernova explosions, the destruction of atoms, or the decay of radioactive material in space.
Gamma rays have wavelengths less than 10 picometers, or less than the diameter of an atom. Gamma radiation has several everyday uses, including sterilizing medical equipment, keeping food fresh, and gamma knife surgery, an effective treatment for brain tumors and functional disorders.
Gamma rays are responsible for turning Dr. Bruce Banner into the Incredible Hulk. They are the highest energy form of light. The rainbow of visible light that we are most familiar with is just part of a far broader spectrum of light, the electromagnetic spectrum. Past the red end of the rainbow, where wavelengths get longer, are infrared rays, microwaves and radio waves, while beyond violet lie the shorter wavelengths of ultraviolet rays, X-rays and, finally, gamma rays. source: livescience.com
Thanks to Global Content Manager, Matt Tierney, for the images and text that comprise the exhibit element. This is just one of the many exhibits in the gallery at One Market in San Francisco. The gallery is open to the public on Wednesdays from 12 pm to 5 pm, and admission is free. Visit us.
Previous posts on this topic include:
Future blog posts will cover:
Measurement is alive in the lab.
Got a Project Chronicle question? Ask Ruslana Steininger.
Project Chronicle is our free technology preview where we look at ways of improving video tutorials. After all, videos are the new textbooks. With Project Chronicle, you can record an AutoCAD or Revit session with screen shots and voice narration, just like normal, but Project Chroicle also automatically captures metadata (e.g., commands, dialog boxes, and settings) as part of the process. You share your chronicle with other users via the web. They can watch your training sessions with traditional play and pause, but they can also search the metadata to locate topics of interest. The team is looking for feedback on how the metadata enhances the learning experience.
You can get started yourself with Project Chronicle by downloading it today.
// Download Project Chronicle via Autodesk Labs
If you have a problem or suggestion, there are a variety of ways to contact the Autodesk Research team that is developing Project Chronicle.
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Many of your feedback requests are answered by Ruslana Steininger who is a Software Quality Assurance Engineer in the Research Transfer Team. She was an intern at Alias in 2002 in Research and came on board as a QA contractor in 2007. The team kept extending her contract for almost a year, and then they hired her full time in 2008.
Ruslana has been with Project Chronicle from its inception and is one of our Project Chronicle experts.
Ruslana received her Honors Bachelor of Science degree in Software Engineering from the Computer Science Department at the University of Toronto in 2003. Prior to that she pursued a degree in Journalism at Ivan Franko Lviv State University in Ukraine. Ruslana enjoys furthering her education and has completed multiple training programs within Autodesk and external professional courses such as the Oracle 10g Database Administrator program (Humber College, Toronto) and the professional Business Skills and Communication course (Dale Carnegie Group). Ruslana is fluent in three languages (English, Ukrainian, and Russian) and has a working knowledge of Polish, French, Spanish and German. Her hobbies include improvisation, poker, yoga, photography, animation movies, hiking, and travelling. |
Expertise is alive in the lab.
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I blog about this every once in a while. Most 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. |
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.
| Expiration Date | Technology Preview |
|---|---|
| February 28, 2013 | Project Facrory.Modz() for Inventor |
| February 28, 2013 |
Process Simulation |
| March 15, 2013 | Project Falcon stand-alone program |
| March 31, 2013 | FABmep Import for Revit MEP |
| March 31, 2013 |
DesignScript |
| April 1, 2013 | Inventor Fusion (Windows version) |
| May 1, 2013 |
Project Sci-Viz for 3ds Max |
| June 30, 2013 | River Analysis Extension for AutoCAD Civil 3D 2012 / AutoCAD Map 3D 2012 |
| August 6, 2013 | Maximo Integration for Autodesk Revit 2013 products |
| August 12, 2013 | Project Basejump for AutoCAD Map 3D / AutoCAD Civil 3D |
| August 30 15, 2013 | Project Falcon for AutoCAD, Inventor, and Revit |
| January 31, 2014 | Mesh Enabler for Inventor 2013 |
| July 1, 2014 | Inventor Simplification |
Technology previews have a specific end date so no one confuses them with perpetual functionality that is associated with a product offering or subscription service. In fact, technology previews are offered for free to Subscription, non-Subscription, and educational users alike. A 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.
I work out of our office on One Market Street in San Francisco. My standup-desk is right across from our Gallery at One Market. One of our newer exhibits is called Powers of Design. It was first featured at the Technology Entertainment & Design (TED) conference last year. Powers of Design depicts the size of everything from the inconceivably small to the mind-blowingly large. I thought I'd cover the exhibit elements, one at a time, over the next few months. I started small and am working my way up.
10-13
MAGNITUDE
0.000,000,000,000,1 m
100 Femtometers
Nada, Zilch, Zero, Zip
100 Femtometers
Nothing to see here folks. We’ve entered the big nowhere in the realm between an atom’s nucleus and its orbiting electrons. While there has been research done for decades at this level (think Manhattan Project), it’s currently the scale at which we measure the probability of interaction between small particles. And probability, as you might imagine, is not an easy thing to illustrate.
To be honest, I had never considered the space between a nucleus and its electrons. Since atoms are the building blocks of all matter, I guess you could say it is possible to get something from nothing. Happy Presidents' Day.
Thanks to Global Content Manager, Matt Tierney, for the images and text that comprise the exhibit element. This is just one of the many exhibits in the gallery at One Market in San Francisco. The gallery is open to the public on Wednesdays from 12 pm to 5 pm, and admission is free. Visit us.
Previous posts on this topic include:
Future blog posts will cover:
Measurement is alive in the lab.
Four years in the making, DesignScript is our free technology preview created by Dr. Robert Aish in Farnborough and his merry men around the globe. The goal is to get customer feedback on exploratory design. The technology preview consists of:
You can learn more about it on:
This most recent update, build 0.4.31.6050, includes many new features and defect corrections based on your feedback -- so much so that new release notes and a list of corrected defects is available on the Labs site.
Programmable geometry is alive in the lab.
Happy Valentine's Day. This is my once-a-month copy/paste blog posting to let you know when Autodesk Freewheel will be unavailable. Many months ago Project Freewheel graduated from Autodesk Labs. Project Freewheel users are now using Autodesk Freewheel — the production version.
To check it out for yourself go to:
http://freewheel.autodesk.com/
Autodesk Freewheel lets anyone visualize a DWF file using just a browser.
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Several times during the year, new functionality is released into Autodesk’s Enterprise Information Systems to enhance the company’s services to partners / customers and help the organization run more efficiently. The next update is scheduled for three hours on February 16, 2013. To implement these changes, Autodesk Freewheel will experience planned downtime from 2:00 p.m. PDT on Saturday, February 16 through 5:00 p.m. PDT on Saturday, February 16. In Greenwich, this would be 12:00 a.m. UDT on Sunday, February 17 through 3:00 a.m. UDT on Sunday, February 17. As I mention every time, 2012 has been much like 2013 in terms of server maintenance. |
We realize that any systems outage impacts the operations of Autodesk, our partners, and our customers. We work diligently to minimize the duration of downtime and appreciate your understanding. So take a three hour break and enjoy the down time.
Updating servers is routinely alive in the lab.
I work out of our office on One Market Street in San Francisco. My standup-desk is right across from our Gallery at One Market. One of our newer exhibits is called Powers of Design. It was first featured at the Technology Entertainment & Design (TED) conference last year. Powers of Design depicts the size of everything from the inconceivably small to the mind-blowingly large. I thought I'd cover the exhibit elements, one at a time, over the next few months. I am starting small and am working my way up. On Monday we talked about our friends, protons and neutrons, so now let's move up the ladder one notch in terms of magnitude.
Artist’s rendition of the atomic nucleus of a uranium atom.
10-14
MAGNITUDE
0.000,000,000,000,01 m
10 Femtometers
Atomic Nucleus of a Uranium Atom
15 Femtometers
As we take the first tentative steps on our journey of scale, we arrive at some of the very building blocks (even though they look round) of existence. The atomic nucleus is the dense region consisting of positively charged protons and electrically neutral neutrons at the center of the basic unit of matter, the atom.
Almost all of an atom’s mass is located in its nucleus, the rest provided by its orbiting cloud of negatively charged electrons. The diameter of the nucleus ranges from 1.75 fm for hydrogen—the diameter of a single proton—to about 15 fm for the heaviest atoms, such as uranium.
On Monday when I covered the proton, and its size was about 1.6 femtometers, not knowing what a femtometer was, I thought "1.6 femtometers -- really? Why didn't scientists just make it 1.0 femtometers and define a femtometer as the size of a proton, much like the Celsius scale was defined for water?" A femtometer is a metric unit of length equal to one quadrillionth of a meter. Realizing that, it all makes sense. It's like the old saying "A billion fentomillions saved, is a billion fentomillions earned."
Thanks to Global Content Manager, Matt Tierney, for the images and text that comprise the exhibit element. This is just one of the many exhibits in the gallery at One Market in San Francisco. The gallery is open to the public on Wednesdays from 12 pm to 5 pm, and admission is free. Visit us.
Previous posts on this topic include:
Future blog posts will cover:
Measurement is alive in the lab.
My wife of almost 32 years and I are celebrating Valentine's Day by attending a show called "How We First Met." It features an Improv Group that re-enacts how three couples met. The storylines are based on how three couples in the audience first met. Sheryl and I have submitted our story. The Improv Group picks which three couples' stories to perform based on internet voting. Please vote for us by clicking on the link below and then clicking on the little red heart above our picture:
Love is alive in the air.
I recently gave an Autodesk Gallery tour to a maker named Richard Esterle. Richard was attending a math conference in the Bay Area and stopped by the gallery. At the conference Richard made math tangible for students by sharing some of the shapes he 3D printed. Richard even has some of his objects available as toys on Shapeways.
source: shapeways.com
Richard told me he was originally inspired by shapes created by Bathsheba Grossman.
Source: shapeways.com
These shapes demonstrate how "complexity is free" when it comes to 3D printing. Unlike an artisan working with a hand tool, a 3D printer does not care how intricate the shape is. 3D printing also does not require a mold. This opens the door to personal manufacturing since in such a situation, each object is different. Using traditional manufacturing techniques to create molds for one-off object creation would not be cost effective. For example, imagine tailor-made shoes just for you at the same price you pay today.
We may hook up Richard with 123D Make and have him create an exhibit for the gallery! The gallery at One Market in San Francisco is open to the public on Wednesdays from 12 pm to 5 pm, and admission is free. Visit us. If you would like to know more about Richard "Dick" Esterle, you can check out this TRIBlive article. This way people won't be able to say you don't know Dick.
Shapes are alive in the lab.
This exhibit is all about size — everything from 10-15 to 1026 in magnitude. There's an item illustrating each magnitude.
I work out of our office on One Market Street in San Francisco. My standup-desk is right across from our Gallery at One Market. One of our newer exhibits is called Powers of Design. It was first featured at the Technology Entertainment & Design (TED) conference last year. Powers of Design depicts the size of everything from the inconceivably small to the mind-blowingly large. I thought I'd cover the exhibit elements, one at a time, over the next few months. I will start small and work my way up.
Artist’s rendition of a proton.
10-15 MAGNITUDE
0.000,000,000,000,001 m
1 Femtometer
Protons and Neutrons
1.6 Femtometers
Our journey through the powers of 10 ranges from the ludicrously small to the incomprehensibly large. We will do our best not to break your brain. We begin subatomically, with protons and neutrons. One or more positively charged protons (diameter 1.6-1.7 fm) reside in each atomic nucleus—this equaling the atomic number.
Slightly heavier than protons, neutrons have no charge. Hydrogen aside (having one proton), atomic nuclei consist of two or more protons and various numbers of neutrons. While we begin at 10-15, there are realms still smaller—from quarks (which we know exist but can’t directly observe), all the way down to Planck length at about 10-20 the diameter of a proton. But don’t quote us, because at so many orders of magnitude smaller than any measurement currently possible, research on Planck length is mostly theoretical.
Thanks to Global Content Manager, Matt Tierney, for the images and text that comprise the exhibit element. This is just one of the many exhibits in the gallery at One Market in San Francisco. The gallery is open to the public on Wednesdays from 12 pm to 5 pm, and admission is free. Visit us.
Measurement is alive in the lab.
The Autodesk fiscal year runs from February 1 through January 31. So we just completed FY13 and are now in FY14. Looking at the number of new, updated, and graduated/retired technology previews as documented on What's New, I see that FY13 was the second most active year yet for Autodesk Labs.
If history is any indication, you can expect similar technology preview activity on Autodesk Labs this fiscal year. As Shaan Hurley and I mentioned in our AU 2012 class, technology previews come from all parts of Autodesk, the level of activity depicted in the graph demonstrates that the divisions at Autodesk are not reluctant to use the Labs process to preview their technologies. Thanks to the Autodesk Labs community for making our technology previews work. Your experience does indeed shape the future of our technology.
Getting trendy is alive in the lab.
Among other marketing duties, Architecture and Construction Management Education Specialist, Glenn Katz, works with our IDEA Studio. The Autodesk IDEA Studio is a scholar-in-residence program located in San Francisco that supports researchers who are using Autodesk software in imaginative ways to solve real world problems. Learn more and submit a proposal by February 15, 2013 to be considered for the summer cycle!
Here are some answers to frequently asked questions about the IDEA Studio.
What is the IDEA Studio?
The IDEA Studio is a scholar-in-residence program that takes place in the Gallery at One Market in San Francisco. We support researchers who use Autodesk software in advanced, imaginative ways to solve real world problems.
Who participates in the IDEA Studio?
University faculty, graduate students, and researchers from industry. Here’s a sampling of past projects:
Why participate?
What do participants say about the IDEA Studio experience?
"Our informal ‘hallway chats’ and firsthand exposure to Autodesk customer projects made our time in the Autodesk Gallery even more valuable - and inspirational….We had ideas that might not have emerged or been shared if we were working in isolation. That’s the joy of working as a team in a space that fosters collaboration."
Evan Variano (Assistant Professor from the UC Berkeley Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering)
"Access to Autodesk technology and people through the IDEA Studio program has really elevated this research. It allowed us to do things faster and to do things that we would not have been able to do otherwise."
Laura Klein (PhD student from USC)
What is the proposal process like?
Applicants for the summer cycle should submit a proposal via our Proposal Submission Page by February 15, 2013. The proposal should include:
Check out this video.
I have been fortunate enough to be involved with some of these projects. I was floored when Dr. Evan Variano shared his results that wetlands more effectively take impurities out of water if dual pumps are turned on and off at random intervals. I got valuable feedback on how Project Photofly could be improved through Ph.D. candidate Laura Klein's presentation regarding how she used it on the USC campus. The IDEA Studio is truly win-win for industry and academia alike. Please email IDEA@autodesk.com if you have questions.
Educational opportunities are always alive in the studio.
The AutoCAD Isometrics WS technology preview was a technology preview of a service for creating, storing, viewing, and sharing isometric drawings. You could design and collaborate on isometrics across multiple platforms - desktop, web, and mobile devices - with full DWG reliability and compatibility. Users would upload PCF files from AutoCAD Plant 3D, Autodesk Inventor, or 3rd party applications, and then generate isometric drawings without running any desktop software for isometric generation.
So if the motto on the Statue of Liberty is "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free." then the motto of AutoCAD Isometrics WS was "Give me your designs, your output, your PCF files yearning to breathe free." Thanks to everyone who shared their PCF files with us and participated in the technology preview.
Liberty is alive in the lab.
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