It is Alive in the Lab

Autodesk Participates in X Prize Visioneering

Jonathan Knowles

At the end of April, Autodesk participated in X Prize Visioneering. Autodesk CTO, Jeff Kowalski and Autodesk Advisor to the CEO/CTO, Jonathan Knowles were "Visioneers." Autodesk Fellow, Tom Wujec, was one of the facilitators.

Visioneering is a process where each year, corporate leaders, philanthropists, heads of innovation and XPRIZE Trustees (“visioneers”) gather for a multi-day Visioneering meetup to brainstorm, debate, and prioritize which of the world's Grand Challenges might be solved through incentivized competition. You can learn more about X Prize Visioneering and winning prizes here:

Learn more.

Here are some highlights:

• There were 120 visioneers that started out as 24 teams.

• After 5 rounds of crafting prize concepts and presenting them, all 120 Visioneers voted on them, and 4 teams moved to the finals.

• Each finalist team got 90 seconds to make the final presentation to 400 people made up of business, government, and education titans.

• The top honors went to X² — Mother of All Prizes. The team included Liz Fleming, Kosta Grammatis, Jennifer Granholm, Jonathan Knowles, Henri Richard, Scott Sorokin, Lynn Tilton, and Vivek Wadhwa. Lynn Tilton generously pledged $5 million to fund the prize.

  

• The second prize was Meteor of the Mind — a prize to address Alzheimer’s Disease.

  

The basic idea behind X² — Mother of All Prizes is that our world faces a persistent gap in access to opportunities and decision-making power for women. This prize, X², enhances existing and future X Prizes with a financial bonus for teams who hire women into contributing roles and rewards teams with an additional bonus when the most senior executive in the team is a woman. Empowered women and girls contribute to the health and productivity of their families, communities, and countries, creating a ripple effect that benefits everyone.

If you would like to see what it was like to be there, check out this storify:

View the slideshow.

Autodesk is proud to bring our perspective to the X Prize Visioneering process. Our software enables our customers to imagine, design, and create a better world. The goal of X Prize is to make the impossible possible — something that's right up our alley.

Visioneering is alive in the lab.

Rules for FIGHT CLUB, I mean PARTICIPATORY DESIGN COUNCIL

PREFACE

As a member of the Autodesk Labs community, you probably enjoy getting an early look at and early input into what Autodesk is working on related to grading, terrain modeling, and interactive terrain shaping. So now is a great time to join the Infrastructure team’s Participatory Design Council.

JOIN US — serious

The team is currently conducting online meetings to explore ideas and get information with professionals who regularly design any kind of grading or other site modifications, especially for transportation or land development projects, at any stage of the project life cycle (planning, conceptual design, detailed design, construction, or maintenance/management).

Please click on the link below if you are interested in this kind of insider involvement:

Contact the Team about the Participatory Design Council.

RULES — not serious

The rules for the Participatory Design Council:

1. 1st RULE: You do talk about PARTICIPATORY DESIGN COUNCIL.
2. 2nd RULE: You DO talk about PARTICIPATORY DESIGN COUNCIL.
3. 3rd RULE: If someone says "stop" or goes limp, taps out the talk is over.
4. 4th RULE: More than two guys to a talk.
5. 5th RULE: One talk at a time.
6. 6th RULE: Shirts and shoes.
7. 7th RULE: Talks will go on as long as they have to.
8. 8th RULE: If this is your first night at PARTICIPATORY DESIGN COUNCIL, you HAVE to talk.

CONCLUSION

We look forward to hearing from you. An RFP (Request for Participation) is alive in the lab.

Trying 3 iPad styluses in 3 days

I have been using an iPad with my finger for years now. Recently I thought "What about a stylus?" I had a $50 gift certificate to Best Buy, so I thought I would try a few of them. Best Buy had about 8 to choose from, so I selected 3:

• Targus Stylus for iPad AMM01US, regularly $27.99 but on sale for $14.99
• Targus Slim Stylus for iPad AMM1214US, $14.99
• Rocketfish Stylus 13A048 RF-BSTLY, $22.99

By using the gift card, this little experiment only cost me $2.22 out of pocket. I had to charge it because the Best Buy register would not accept cash. Perhaps currency is a thing of the past? Surely we should get rid of the penny which costs more than one cent to make. But I digress...

1. Targus AMM01US

   

   On Saturday I started with the Targus AMM01US — the largest one. You know what they say "Go big or go home." I cleaned my iPad glass screen (which has no protective covering by the way). My goal was to use just the stylus as in I could then leave the iPad at a crime scene, and my fingerprints would not be on it.

   For my review of The Infinite Resource, I had drawn 21 little pictures using Paint.net on my Windows laptop. Here is an example:

   

   I downloaded and installed Sketchbook Pro on my iPad and was able to recreate that quite easily.

   

   I could have made the sketch more artsy, but the goal for those images was to make them resemble Jessica Hagy's Indexed blog, so I resisted the temptation, In addition, this was my first time using Sketchbook Pro, so I don't yet know enough to get too fancy.

   I tried playing a basketball game where I normally use my finger. Using the stylus, I did not get the same tactile feedback. Normally I am decent at this game. With the stylus I was awful. I only made one shot.

   

   As I used the pen to navigate my browser, read emails, and make posts in the Autodesk discussion forums, my speed seemed to be about the same, but for some reason I felt disconnected from the experience. The rubber tip of the stylus is spongy enough to slide across the screen and firm enough to allow depressing the circular iPad button that lets you close an app. When entering text, unlike my children that use two thumbs, I use one finger, so using the stylus was about the same. The "just use the stylus" strategy essentially worked for everything until I needed a two-finger gesture — like zooming in on an image. I guess this helps keep me free from a life of crime.

2. Targus Slim Stylus AMM1214US

   

   On Sunday I tried out the Targus Slim Stylus AMM1214US. As the smallest stylus, I envisioned that it would give me the best precision. I used it sketch.

   

   I found that the smaller rubber tip had little effect on the precision. The brush settings on Sketchbook Pro make more of an impact than the size of the stylus. It was easier to see what was being drawn since my fat finger was not obscuring the cursor location. The entire sketching process is a bit interesting in that you can't rest your hand on the iPad while sketching.

3. Rocketfish RF-BSTLY

   

   On Monday I tried the Rocketfish RF-BSTLY. It is essentially the same as the Targus but 3/4" shorter. Although shorter, for all practical purposes it is the same as the Targus AMM01US. I guess I was fortunate to get the Targus on sale.

   I tried taking notes.

   

   Taking notes is worse than manual paper and pen. My handwriting is not as neat.

After 3 days usage with styluses I don't notice an unusual wear such as microscratches on my iPad screen. When I told others I was going to try a stylus, I did get some recommendations.

• Tom Wujec has tried every pen and stylus to make Sketchbook on the Mac really work. He doesn't really like any of them, since there's no palm rejection that works which means you have to draw from a distance. Tom suggested the Jot. There's one with a rubberized grip that feels pretty good. His very favorite is the JaJa which has pressure sensitivity. According to Tom it works well, but he also pointed out to make sure that you order it with several extra nibs, since they are dicey.

• Donnie Gladfelter's personal favorite is the Wacom Bamboo Stylus.

• Ursula Sadiq suggested I check out Instructables for DIY Solutions. There were many examples, but some of the straight-forward ones included:

  • DIY stylus using a pen and tin foil
  • DIY stylus using a chopstick and foam
  • DIY stylus using a painbrush and pencil eraser
  • DIY stylus using a pen, kebob skewer, and conducting foam

• Beau Turner found that the weight of the stylus really makes a difference. He likes one he found on Kickstarter — the funding site for new start-up companies — called More/Real Stylus Cap.

Perhaps at another time? It is likely that I will learn more after I use them for more than 1 day each.

The net result of this experience is that a stylus, any stylus, provides benefit for a novice Sketchbook user, but for most other applications, it's about the same. For games, it's actually worse. If I had to choose, I guess I'd say, "Give me the finger."

Picking my finger is alive in the lab.

Autodesk Branding Infographic

Technologist for the Office of the CTO, Shaan Hurley, shared this with me. I thought it was cool, so I am sharing it with you.

Enlarge

History is alive in the lab.

WIRED: 3D Printed Speaker Cases with LED Lights

Here's a 2 minute video:

Watch the 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.

Rock Boat XIII was music to my ears...

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.

1. Native Run
   
   They sometimes sound like Sheryl Crow.

2. Carbon Leaf
   
   They have an Irish influence.

Sunday: As we boarded the ship, we enjoyed Native Run a second time.

1. Native Run
   

2. Is this a cool ship or what?
   

3. 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.

1. Miami sky line
   
   We sailed off after a nice sunset.

2. Sister Hazel
   

3. Ben Rector
   
   He is a funny storyteller as well as a good musician/singer.

4. Junior Doctor
   
   I purchased their album before the trip.

5. 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.

1. Beach
   

2. Ingram Hill
   
   I neglected to take a picture. I was in the water.

3. Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers
   Photo from another performance — not the beach.

Then we returned to the boat for more shows.

1. 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.

2. A Rocket to the Moon
   

3. Scars on 45
   

4. Tony Lucca
   My picture came out too crappy to post.

5. The Dunwells
   

Tuesday was our second day on the island. I got there early to get us a spot with an unobstructed view.

1. Beach
   

2. 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?"

3. 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.

1. Saints of Valory
   

2. Scars on 45
   

3. NeedToBreathe
   

On Wednesday we stayed aboard the ship and were treated to several more wonderful performances.

1. The Dunwells
   

2. Songwriters Session
   
   The singer/songwriters described their inspirations for writing and performed their songs.

3. Red Wanting Blue
   

4. Ben Rector
   
   His song, "Let The Good Times Roll," has a very New Orleans feel to it.

5. Woodstock '69 (various artists)
   

Thursday was our last day, and everyone made sure to make the best of it.

1. 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.

2. Swear and Shake
   

3. The Dunwells
   

4. Junior Doctor
   My pictures were kind of blurry.

5. A Rocket to the Moon
   
   I had purchased their album before the trip too.

6. Saints of Valory
   

7. 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:

1. Scars on 45 (1 album available on iTunes)
2. Saints of Valory (1 song available on iTunes)
3. Ben Rector (3 albums available on iTunes)
4. The Dunwells (1 album available on iTunes)
5. A Rocket to the Moon (have 1 album, 4 EPs available on iTunes, new album coming out on March 26 on iTunes)
6. Junior Doctor (have 1 album, 1 EP available on iTunes)

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.

One Data Point: @CarnivalCruise Beats the Snot Out of @CruiseNorwegian for #TheRockBoat

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

• The check-in process was faster. Last year the boarding process took about an hour wherein we spent the time getting to know other passengers. This was facilitated by our attire since everyone was asked to wear clothing that identified where they were from. Although I wore my Golden State Warriors shooting shirt, this year we walked right on. Nice!
• Our cabin had nicer finishings. Clearly the Norwegian Pearl is a newer vessel than the Carnival Elation.
• There was a good variety of venues to see shows: a beautiful Stardust theater with comfy seats, an Atrium area where some could sit and many could stand, a Poolside stage for shows outdoors, two lounges for medium-sized shows, and a small bar area for small shows.
• To help reduce the spread of germs, an attendant greeted passengers with the phrase "washy washy" as he sprayed their hands with a dab of hand sanitizer upon entering the buffet area. Sister Hazel wrote a song for the last night with the lyrics "Washy washy, Happy happy, Smiley smiley."
• The check-out process was faster. We walked right off the boat, and US Customs processed us immediately.

Norwegian Cruise Line Cons

• Once onboard, getting our luggage was a total hassle. Our bags were tagged with preprinted luggage labels that identified our room number, so the staff could bring our bags to our room. We were told we could bring one bottle of wine per person for a $15 corkage fee. Knowing this, we each packed a bottle in our bag and expected to pay the fee when the restaurant uncorked our bottles. We waited at our room for several hours — anxious to unpack and get settled in. With no bags in sight, I called the front desk and was told bags were still being delivered. Hours later we got a note delivered saying we had to pick up our bags due to a security problem. We could do so at 5:00 pm. At 5:01 pm we went to the reception desk to pick up our bags. We were told to go to another location. They could not give specific directions, only that we should go down a hall, make a few lefts, and rights, and look for it by a penny machine. After walking around for a while, we eventually found the penny machine. We saw no sign of any luggage pick-up. Eventually I opened a door that said "Crew Only" to see two guys sitting in a storage area. They asked us to wait outside. Minutes later they propped open the door, and we entered. They asked us to look for our bags. We found Sheryl's. They told us the X-rays showed that the had liquid. We said yes, it's our bottle of wine. They made us pay the corkage fee right then and there. Since the bottle was actually larger than a typical bottle, we had to pay $30 instead of $15. Sadly I could not find my bag. They told me that if it was not here, it was probably still being delivered. So we left, returned to our room, and Sheryl could unpack. After Sheryl got settled, and I still had no bag, I went to reception and explained our situation: we had one bag we had gotten from security, but the other was nowhere to be found. We completed a lost luggage request. Sheryl and I then went back to security, just by chance, and lo and behold my bag was there. The X-ray showed it too had liquid. We opened it, and I paid the $15 corkage fee for my normal-sized bottle of wine. We then went back to my room, and I unpacked. I can guess that Norwegian can show me some fine print that explains the process we should have followed to bring wine on board and avoid problems like these, but this was not a great start. They should know where our bags are at all times. FedEx and UPS know how to track thousands of packages.
• The safety briefing was chaotic. On Carnival we went to our designated locations, and a person physically present (a local person) showed us how to put on a life vest and told us what to do in the event of an emergency. For Norwegian, they kept us waiting in the hall 20 minutes before we could enter our designated briefing location. Once inside, we had to wait for someone to describe how to put on a life vest over the PA system while a local person demonstrated. In short, I see no reason why this needed to be synchronized at all of the stations using the PA system. This lengthened the process as it could not start until all briefing stations were ready. Each group should have been able to get the information independently from a provided script read by the local person. Put the vest over your head. Buckle the strap. Pull it tight. It has a whistle if you need it. I know it is probably a federal mandate to hold such briefings, like the ones where flight attendants show you how to buckle a seat belt, but this could have been executed much better.
• The area for poolside performances did not have enough places where one could watch shows while seated. Carnival's ship had more room to watch shows from deck chairs. This is a plus for an 8-hour day in the sun.
• The 24-hour Norwegian buffet was sometimes closed. We went for lunch one time — closed. We went for a late might snack once — closed. We only had to wait an hour before it reopened, but Carnival never did this. In fact in addition to the normal buffet, Carnival also had an outdoor buffet so you could pick up meals poolside without going indoors. After a midnight concert where the crowd then went for a late dinner, the buffet ran out of food. I know the buffet needs some down time to clean and switch from one meal to the next, but Carnival did not have this issue. How do they do it?
• The Norwegian buffet also had a drinking problem — though there were ample stations to get food, there were too few for iced-tea or flavored water. There was always a line. In addition, the cups were so small that it may require multiple trips for a single meal. I guess Norwegian has small cups to minimize waste from abandoned half-consumed drinks, but having more drink stations would avoid the lines.
• The Norwegian cruise includes two days on their private island called Great Stirrup Cay. Though considered part of the Bahamas, it is really a desolate rock with white sand and palm trees artificially added. It was not scenic at all. Over the years as Norwegian develops the property, it will probably get better. Carnival used its poolside area in place of having its own island.
• Each room has a status indicator set by the occupant and steward: Welcome, Do Not Disturb, and Make Up Cabin. On Tuesday I accidentally left the status as Do Not Disturb, so our room did not get serviced, and we ran out of clean towels — my fault. Since this was our second Rock Boat Cruise we were entitled to attend a special event. Attendance required a ticket to identify the non-virgins. Passengers obtained the tickets from their stewards. At 10:00 am on Wednesday as we departed our room, I flipped the status indicator to Make Up Cabin. We happened to meet our steward in the hall where I apologized for my mistake but asked him to make up our room since we were out of towels. Our steward showed me our event tickets embossed with our names and said he would put them in our room. We said thanks and went to the island for the day. When we returned at 4:00 pm after a day of shows, our room had not been made up yet, so we had no clean towels. I called reception who seemed surprised. They acted like it was my fault — "Do you have a roommate who was in the room?" I explained that my wife had been with me the whole day, and we even had a conversation with our steward in the hall. I explained that we also needed our tickets for the event. The voice on the other end said they would take care of it. Hours later we returned to our room, and indeed it had been made up. We had clean towels (yeah!), but no tickets. Luckily we saw our steward in the hall later that night and obtained our tickets.
• Our toilet stopped working just before midnight on the last night. At midnight I called the front desk. They told me they would send somebody over. When no one came, I called them back at 12:45 am. We wanted to go to bed, but could not if a repair person needed to enter our cabin. The voice on the other end of the phone told me to try the toilet again. It worked. They had fixed it outside of our room, but neglected to tell us. So we stayed up extra time for nothing.
• The alcoholic drink purchasing process was right our of the 1960's. Although we had a magnetic room card, we still had to fill our paperwork. Our bill included a $12 fee per person per day for tips. This money would be shared among the restaurant staff and stewards who take care of our rooms. Despite the fact the tips where built-in, each service provider stared you down while you signed the paperwork in hopes of getting you to write in an "additional tip" amount. I only did it when I got above average service, which was rare. Our steward told me "This is the last time I will see you." three times before he got the hint that I wasn't biting. Between the luggage hassle and the ticket issue, no way.
• On our first day at the beach, we rented two rafts. A raft was $12.99 for one or $18.99 for two. We chose the package of two so our daughter and her friend could each have one. The problem with this was that they charged us $18.99 twice. Despite the Norwegian Pearl being newer, we could not view our folio using the TV in our room. I happened to go get a physical copy at reception. When I spotted the second charge, I asked reception to correct it. They could not. Instead I had to come back at 5:00 pm and talk to a person who handles these issues. I showed up at 5:01 pm and got it corrected but the person who helped me never apologized for the hassle. In terms of renting things while on the island, it was $5 to go down a water slide once.

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.

On Vacation Next Week

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:

• Sister Hazel
• Sasha Aaron
• Alternate Routes
• A Rocket to the Moon
• Joe Bachman
• Bronze Radio Return
• Carbon Leaf
• Brandi Carlile
• Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers
• The Daylights
• The Dunwells
• Amy Gerhartz
• Good Old War
• Green River Ordinance
• Will Hoge
• Drew Holcomb & The Neighbors
• Ingram Hill
• Brendan James
• Junior Doctor
• Tony Lucca
• Matthew Mayfield
• Jon McLaughlin
• Native Run
• NEEDTOBREATHE
• Ponderosa
• Ben Rector
• Red Wanting Blue
• Rusted Root
• Saints of Valory
• Satellites & Sirens
• Scars on 45
• DJ Soulman
• Stokeswood
• Swear and Shake
• Trevor Jackson
• Yacht Rock Review

Relaxation is alive in the lab.

Please Vote for Scott and Sheryl's Story for How We First Met

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:

Vote for Scott and Sheryl

 

Love is alive in the air.

The 2,000th It's Alive in the Lab blog post

As a DWF Technical Evangelist, I started blogging by supplying Shaan Hurley with guest articles that he would post on his blog, Between The Lines, for me. On February 14, 2006 I started my own blog, Beyond the Paper, using Shaan's naming strategy where the emphasis was on DWF files and what you could do with them beside just printing. There are 916 posts on Beyond the Paper -- most of which I authored.

When our team's DWF work grew into a more formalized presence for Autodesk Labs, I defected from the DWF-related blog to It's Alive in the Lab. I wrote my first article on April 10, 2007 entitled "It's alive. It's alive. It's alive." (an allusion to the original Frankenstein movie) which described the mission of Autodesk Labs.

Not counting Beyond the Paper, this is my 2000th blog article for It's Alive in the Lab. A blog is a novel written one page at a time. This is the Autodesk Labs story. This is my story. Thanks to the Autodesk Labs community whose readership keeps the blog going. The 3,411 comments on this blog reflect our dialog about people, technologies, utilities, and thoughts that make up Autodesk Labs.

Sewing words together like body parts is alive in the lab.

3ds Max Design Hero Competition Winners Announced!

Marketing Manager for Cross Industry Design Visualization, Chrysoulla Srabian, shared some news with me. Congratulations to the winners of the Autodesk 3ds Max Design Heroes contest. This stunning image by Tianyi Zhu won best overall image. Congratulations also to the honorable mentions:

• Ly Anh Thi – 2nd place overall
• Viktor Fretyan – Honorable Mention, Buildings Category
• Josh Barandon – Honorable Mention, Transportation
• Zdravko Barisic – Honorable Mention, Product Design

Thanks to co-sponsors Nvidia, Boxx Technologies and CGARchitect.com Check out the gallery to see all entries, so much great work!

Rejoicing is alive in the lab.

6 Technology Trends at Autodesk

"In the future, our job is going to be to dream..."
— Brian Mathews

Hear VP of Reality Capture, Brian Mathews, talk about 6 technology trends we see at Autodesk.

1. Reality capture (laser scanning, photogrammetry)
2. Cloud-based access (everyone access data anywhere, anytime)
3. Infinite computing (apply many computers to a single problem)
4. Simulation of physics (visualization, simulation, analysis)
5. Digital to analog (3D printing, CNC milling/laser cutting, robotic assembly, nanobiology)
6. Network effect (the internet, social networking, mobile networking)

This is two and a half minutes well spent.

Dreaming is alive in the lab.

Spotify totally changes one's listening habits

For as far back as I can remember I have enjoyed listening to music. In my youth I would buy vinyl albums. In my 20's I would buy CDs. Later in life I dispensed with physical media and became an iTunes kind of guy. Regardless of how I obtained the music, the pattern was the same.

1. I would hear a song on the radio or see a performance on TV - such as The Midnight Special, In Concert, or Saturday Night Live. I would like what I hear so I would purchase the album.
2. During the first week that I had a new album, I would pretty much listen to nothing else. I would be engrossed in the new music.
3. After the initial immersion, I would simply add the music to my mental repertoire and revisit it when I was in the mood to hear it.

The last part is key. I would be so familiar with the music that I would play it when I knew I wanted to hear it.

Now let's consider how we watch movies or TV. It is rare that I will watch a TV show I have already seen or a movie twice. Video is different from music. It's why services like Netflix are successful. People don't need to own movies like they do albums. So unlike music where for most listenings I know what I am in for (except for that very first time), each time I watch a movie, I don't know what I am in for because I haven't seen it before.

Now along comes Spotify... Spotify is a service I subscribe to for a monthly fee. Paraphrasing from its web site: "There are millions of tracks on Spotify. So whether I am working out, partying or relaxing, the right music is always at my fingertips. I can choose what I want to listen to, or let Spotify surprise me. I can browse through the music collections of friends, artists and celebrities, or create a radio station and just sit back."

Spotify has made my music experience like a video experience. As a service that gives me access to lots of music, I now tend to pick music that I don't own. If I owned it, I would just play my iTunes copy. So now listening to music is a "I don't know what I am gong to get" type experience. I guess this is all part of a cultural shift away from owning things (even music files) to simply having access to them instead. There's also the social aspect in that what I listen to is shared on Facebook. That feature helps me, as well as others, discover new music. Facebook is the replacement for The Midnight Special, etc. It feeds the cycle of discover, immerse, and file away for the future if I choose to revert to my old ways.

I got my first iPod because my wife bought it for me at COSTCO. It sat unopened for two days. I wasn't sure I wanted to be an iTunes kind of guy. I was a PC user — not a user of Macintosh software. I had thousands of physical CDs in my collection. Eventually I made the switch and was so glad I did. Downloading music at $9.99 per album was easier and cheaper than trekking to the store to obtain a CD. Using a search engine to locate music was also easier than thumbing through hundreds of CDs on the store racks.

I became a Spotify user because our CFO, Mark Hawkins, insisted that this was right up my alley. At first I was hesitant. Now that I have made the switch, it seems so much easier to keep my music in the cloud and access it from any device I need to hear it on. It's much like CAD software. Once users make the switch, it will be so much easier to create, modify, and share their designs in the cloud instead of locking them away in files on personal computers.

Rental music is alive in the lab.

Happy Holidays from OCTO

Regardless of what you celebrate, please enjoy the happiest of holidays from Autodesk Labs and the rest of the gang in the Office of the CTO (OCTO).

Merriment is alive in the lab.

Autodesk Labs: Week of Rest

We have a variety of feedback mechanisms available for technology previews on Autodesk Labs.

Please continue to use them. For the next two weeks our replies might be a little slower than normal. This is the time of year we refer to as "the week of rest" where we take some time off to spend with our families. Fear not, we'll all be back at work on Wednesday, January 2, 2013.

Time off is alive in the lab.

Kuli Kuli Bars Nourish the World and the Niger Economy

Our daughter, Stephanie, and her friend, Lisa Curtis, have been friends for a long time. Actually as grade schoolers they cowrote an award winning essay for an Alameda Waste Management contest entitled Bobby and His Composting. Now they're all grown up and are off pursuing their dreams.

map source: Gearing Up For Africa

After a summer as an intern at the White House, Lisa joined the Peace Corps and was stationed in Niger. Now she's trying to help her former country-mates by creating a product that is based on Moringa which is plentiful in Niger. If her Kuli Kuli bars catch on, they will help Niger have a more profitable export crop. You can check out Kuli Kuli on Facebook.

They come in dark chocolate cherry and honey almond.

Eating right is alive in the lab.

Using a Raspberry Pi Computer to Read to the Blind

You may recall some of my earlier posts related to the Raspberry Pi computer:

• Internal Autodesk Contest: Win a Raspberry Pi computer
• Internal Raspberry Pi Contest: And the winners are...
• Toward Making Facial Recognition As Easy As Pi
• Raspberry Pi: Poly want a cracker?

When 12-year-old Schuyler St. Leger talked at AU 2012 about small general purpose computers like the Arduino and Raspberry Pi, it reminded me of our internal efforts. I am happy to share another story. Senior Software Engineer, Norman Hu's idea was:

With one camera and one speaker, a Raspberry Pi Computer can be used as an assistant to read a book to the blind. Usually the blind have to read Braille by touching their fingers to the page. This traditional approach requires that they obtain a special copy of each desired book instead of a standard one off the shelf. If they have this machine, the camera can take a photograph of a book’s page, the application installed in Pi computer can translate the photo to an article, and then the application can read the article aloud through a speaker. This new approach would open up a world of books to the blind that are not available in Braille.

Norman worked with his peers in Shanghai on completing the project. They created this 4-minute video:

Software Development Manager, Bruce Song, let us know that the team was successful in making the idea real. He wanted to show his sincere appreciation to:

• CTO, Jeff Kowalski, for the donation of the Raspberry Pi
• Autodesk Labs for organization of the competition
• Ling, Bruce H and Robin for device support like camera, SD card etc.
• Norman Hu for his great idea
• Everyone on the team (Norman Hu, Quill Chen, Rain Chen, Gavin Jiang, Shelby Liu, Christopher Zhang, Keda Weng) for their contributions

Bruce is really proud of each and every one on the project. From the process he saw the team's passion on new ideas and the courage and perseverance to solve the technical difficulties.

Reading aloud is alive in the lab.

You can help Autodesk and Engineers Without Borders

"If you feel your dream is dying
 Hold tight
 This world is gonna pull through
 Don't give up
 You've got a reason to live
 Can't forget you only get what you give"
-- The New Radicals

Attention Autodesk Labs community members: You Get. We Give.

Team up with Autodesk and Engineers Without Borders USA to improve the lives of people around the world. When you sign up for a free Autodesk® 360 account, Autodesk will give US$1 to Engineers Without Borders USA. Autodesk is committed to giving up to $30,000, so sign up soon, and get your colleagues to sign up as well, to ensure we maximize Autodesk’s contribution.

You get. We give. Everyone wins.

You get Autodesk 360 -- a cloud-based platform that gives you access to storage, a collaboration workspace, and cloud services to help you dramatically improve the way you design, visualize, simulate, and share your work with others anytime, anywhere.

Autodesk gives to Engineers Without Borders USA -- a non-profit humanitarian organization dedicated to partnering with developing communities around the world. EWB-USA works to build a world in which all communities have the capacity to meet their basic human needs, addressing challenges including water purifications and delivery, sanitation, transportation and infrastructure projects, and sustainable and renewable energy systems.

• Check out this 99 second video.

• Sign up now.

Getting and giving are alive in the lab.

Volunteers Requested for a Smart Phone-Based Study

In the tradition of "Uncle Sam wants you!" the "Autodesk 360 Team wants you." They are looking for volunteers to participate in a study related to taking pictures using smart phones.

http://labs.autodesk.com/you

Conscription is alive in the lab.

Sustainability at Autodesk: Eating Our Own Compost

OK so maybe I don't have that expression right. When Microsoft referred to requiring employees to install the latest operating system build on their computers, they coined the phrase "eating one's own dog food." Today is 12/12/12. I was tempted to hold this post until 12:12:12 today but resisted the temptation.

At Autodesk we often have brown bag lunches. They are so-named because employees grab a lunch, bring it to a conference room, and enjoy a presentation on a topic of interest. On Wednesday of last week, Ben Thompson, Sustainable Business Program Manager, presented Autodesk’s Sustainability Initiatives. The brown bag event was sponsored by Autodesk's Green Team -- a group of employees who work to ensure Autodesk remains a sustainable company. It would be hypocritical of us to include sustainability features in our applications and services yet not eat our own dog food. So sustainability starts with Autodesk as a company, and in turn, with us as employees.

With his permission, I thought I would share some impressive highlights from Ben's presentation.

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Autodesk is a recognized industry leader in the area of sustainability.

The world is growing, and by 2050, there will be over 9 billion people on the planet. We think a better world is one where those 9 billion people live well and within the limits of the planet. Autodesk is part of what will be required for that to happen.

We are also accelerating breakthrough ideas through leading by example in our own company.

• In our own buildings, we are using our software to design better, more sustainable and productive offices. We just opened two new offices which are aiming to be our 12th and 13th LEED certified offices. And we aren’t stopping there. We have 3 projects right here in San Francisco and many more around the globe. These examples demonstrate how our tools can be applied to create more sustainable buildings and workspaces.

• Most recently at Autodesk University, we worked with Mandalay Bay to make the event as sustainable as possible. From monitoring energy use, to hand sorting trash to maximize landfill diversion, the events teams are doing a lot for more sustainable events. We even convened a group of sustainability executives from the major Las Vegas resorts, expo companies, and other major customers to demand more sustainable events and talk specifically about the solutions to standardizing around sustainability. As it turns out, Las Vegas is actually doing a lot in terms of sustainability, and we are challenging and helping them to do more.

• At Autodesk, Hybrids are now the default option for all rental cars in the US. We are committing with Hertz to reduce GHGs from Autodesk rentals by 30% in the next 5 years, helping us meet our corporate GHG reduction target, set out by C-FACT.

You can also check out:

• Autodesk Sustainability Report
  autodesk.com/progressreport

• Autodesk Sustainability Workshop
  autodesk.com/sustainabilityworkshop

We want to hear from you. Please contact us at: sustainability@autodesk.com.

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Don't worry, the Green team will make sure those brown bags make it to our compost bins.

The Green Team is alive in the lab.

check out the new management blog: Shutting Up!

When I attended what is now the University of Louisiana at Lafayette (ULL) I wrote computer programs in a programming language called pl1 (programming language one). These programs ran on an operating system called Multics.

Multics (Multiplexed Information and Computing Service) was a mainframe timesharing operating system begun in 1965 and used until 2000. Multics began as a research project and was an important influence on operating system development. The system became a commercial product sold by Honeywell to education, government, and industry. ^{source: multicians.org}

Folklore has it that the name Unix was derived as Multics for one person.

When I graduated college I went to work for Honeywell — the vendor who supplied Multics to ULL. I was developing software to test computer hardware as part of a Total OnLine Test System (TOLTS) — everything in computer science has an acronym. Though I had spent almost my entire life in Louisiana, I relocated to Phoenix, Arizona. By pure coincidence my college roommate, Tim Barrios, also accepted a job in Phoenix — working for GTE developing telephone switch software — the kind of system that did things like call forwarding or determining whether a phone call was long distance or not. Tim's chief programmer was a guy named Eric Wagner that I first met in 1981. I eventually left Honeywell for GTE and worked with Eric in the area of Quality Assurance. The principles of Edward Deming were in vogue back then. You may have seen the quote at the main stage presentation during the #AU2012 general session:

"In God we trust — all others bring data."
— Edward Deming

Eric is the reason I am at Autodesk today. Our CEO, Carl Bass, is his cousin. When Carl relocated his start-up company, Ithaca Software, from Ithaca, New York to Alameda, California, Eric suggested that I interview. Though I had not gone to Cornell like the other Ithacans, nor had a background in 3D graphics, nor had programmed in the C programming language on a PC before, I would be perfect for the job. Eric also eventually joined Ithaca Software. Ithaca Software was acquired by Autodesk in 1993. Since Carl is now CEO, did we acquire them? I worked directly for Eric there as well as at Buzzsaw.com and Autodesk. Many Autodesk managers (e.g., Jeff Kowalski, Brian Mathews, Rob Fjerstad) were raised under the tutelage of Eric.

Eric has a new blog:

Shutting Up! — Management and leadership tips, tricks, and techniques especially useful for the newer manager. Hosted by Eric Wagner, CTO of Pearson Digital Learning.

You should check it out.

Management lessons are alive in the lab.

Village BIM: Revit Utopic City – Many Projects, many Challenges

As I mentioned on Tuesday, while at #AU2012 I met Autodesk Pre-Sales Engineer for Architecture, Emmanuel Di Giacomo, in person. He manages the French Autodesk “Village BIM” Blog and Revit Architecture Utopic City on Facebook. The response to Tuesday's article demonstrated that there are a fair number of Autodesk Labs community members in French-speaking countries, so I am posting this follow-up.

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Revit Utopic City – Many Projects, many Challenges

Whether it’s a district, a building, a bridge, a tower or whatever architectural creation, Revit Architecture allowed the creation of these weird and complex buildings based on top of a DWG map of Roma City. A mix of techniques like In-Place and Conceptual, going from macro to micro scale, starting from the building until the tiniest BIM family inside the building like lighting systems, computers, furniture, etc. going from release 2010 until 2012…

The Utopic City has been recently featuring in many articles like for example the recent one in BIM Academy, explaining the reasons behind this interest for the Utopic City: http://www.bimacademy.it/2012/02/citta-utopiche-citta-parametriche-intervista-ad-emmanuel-di-giacomo/

Utopic City -- South West District

Utopic City 00 The TV Towers

Utopic City -- The Lake Dwellings

Utopic City -- Eon's Arch

Utopic City -- The Growing Octopus

Utopic City -- Trapelo Revisit

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Thanks Emmanuel. I am happy to help spread the word.

Cityscapes are alive in the lab.

Village BIM: The Ever Growing Revit Architecture Utopic City on Facebook

While at #AU2012 I met Autodesk Pre-Sales Engineer for Architecture, Emmanuel Di Giacomo, in person. He manages the French Autodesk “Village BIM” Blog and Revit Architecture Utopic City on Facebook. Emmanuel sent me a follow up article. Since I believe that there are a fair number of Autodesk Labs community members in French-speaking countries, I thought this might be of interest.

---

The Ever Growing Revit Architecture Utopic City on Facebook

Discover the Revit Architecture Utopic City fully designed with Revit Architecture by Emmanuel Di Giacomo (BIM Solutions Expert – Architecture for Autodesk in France). Started 2 years ago, the idea of this project was to showcase the power of Revit Architecture. It’s having lots of success as I have more than 8,533 Fans all over the World. It’s a growing success since the Facebook page was started in early 2011.

Architect by training, Emmanuel has been with Autodesk for more than 10 years now. He’s currently Presales Engineer for AEC in France since last year and after 6 years as Revit Customer Success Engineer working for our AEC Division where he has been following up Revit’s Implementation at Key Architectural and Construction Companies in EMEA like Zaha Hadid Architects and other. He initially had the chance to start as Marketing Manager for AEC in 2002, having the honor to manage the launch of Revit Building (at that time) for France.

You can see the Complete set of more than 50 Revit Utopic Projects here: http://www.facebook.com/revitarchitectureutopiccity

Finally, you'll certainly have noticed one strange and original building recently used worldwide for the 2013 Press Launch and during OTC on the stage to demo Cloud Rendering. Well, Emmanuel redesigned Autodesk Office in Grenoble (France) to showcase what Revit’s BIM capabilities offer to our Customers. See Renaissance_Shots_Standard_EDG111105.pdf (15866.8K) for more information.

---

Thanks Emmanuel. I am happy to help spread the word. A toast to you!

French toast is alive in the lab.

Why I Don't Yet Drive An Electric Car

I have had my Smart Car For Two for two years now. I blogged about it when I first bought it. I now have about 3,800 miles on it. I fill the tank up with gas about once a month. When I got the car, the most frequently asked question was "Since you are such a fiscally conservative but socially liberal Republican, why didn't you buy an electric car?" The MSRP on my Smart Car was $14,500. My commute to work involves a 2-mile drive from my house to a parking lot where I get on a ferry, take a 16-minute ride, disembark, and walk across the street. So I don't put many miles on my car.

Recently I got the Fall 2012 MY FORD catalog. I couldn't help but notice these two cars on one of the SHOWROOM pages:

Look at the sticker prices of these vehicles.

• The MSRP on the 2013 Ford Focus is $16,995.80.
• The MSRP on the 2013 Ford Focus Electric is $39,995.10.

I think we all agree that electric cars are cheaper to drive and operate, but are more expensive in up-front costs. If I wanted to do the environmentally correct thing and buy an electric-powered Focus instead of a gas-powered Focus, how long would it take me to recoup the extra $22,999.30 ($39,995.10 - 16,995.80) in up front costs.

• GAS:
  I drive 1,900 miles per year. The estimated MPG of the 2013 Focus is 28 city/40 highway. Splitting the difference and assuming 34 MPG, that means I would need 56 gallons for the year. Gas in California is $3.99 per gallon. So it would cost me $223.44 for gas for the year.

• ELECTRIC:
  I drive 1,900 miles per year. The estimated MPG in terms of electricity is 105 MPGe. So I would need to buy enough electricity that is the equivalent of buying 18 gallons (1900/105) of gas. At $3.99 per gallon, that would cost me $71.82 in electricity for the year.

Given that I drive so little, I would save $151.62 ($223.44 - $71.82) per year. To recoup my initial extra investment of $22,999.30 (not including sales taxes and vehicle license fees based on value), I would need to drive my electric car almost 152 years ($22,999.30/$151.62) to break even. And that's why I don't yet drive an electric car. Even with The Singularity, I only plan on living another 150 years.

Simple math is alive in the lab.

My so-called Social Media Life

In an earlier blog post, I relayed the story of how I came up with the right hand navigation elements on the Autodesk Labs site. An iconoclast for icons - the saga of icons on the Labs site Though these icons allow Autodesk Labs site visitors to provide feedback on technology previews using social media, actually this is just part of the story.

My social media life is actually a web of connected interactions. I share information as well as respond to feedback in a variety of ways. Shaan Hurley compares the management of this to wrestling an octopus. My goal is to make information available in a variety of places so people can consume it and respond to it where they want instead of just where I want to post it.

Regardless of the trials and tribulations of doing more than just posting one blog entry, social media is the way to go.

Social media is alive in the lab.

Happy Thanksgiving

On this day we give thanks for the many fortunate things in our lives - family, friends, health, and a great place to work. Enjoy the day. We'll get back to responding to your Autodesk Labs feedback on Monday.

Appreciation is alive in the lab.

Canstruction San Francisco

To encourage employees to donate canned goods to those less fortunate, our building, The Landmark at One Market, is featuring Canstruction San Francisco that includes exhibits made from stacked food cans. The exhibits will be on display through November 18. Visitors can deposit canned goods in barrels near our entrances.

View photo album
(after clicking on the image above, use the Next link in the upper left)

The cans that make up these exhibits will be donated at the end of the showing. We also have collection barrels in our offices.

Generosity is alive in the lab.

3D Printed Speaker Enclosure Made At The Office

photo: finished product

The folks at Instructables tell us that Halloween is their busiest time of the year. People like to make things as part of Halloween costumes. Speaking of making things, we see that the line between designing and making is blurring, because both processes are going digital. 3D printing is one of the ways that digital fabrication is in season right now.

Microsoft referred to it as "Eating one's own dog food." Technical Adviser to the CTO, Jonathan Knowles, prefers to call it "drinking one's own champagne." Regardless of what you call it, it's always good when employees actually use the products/services their companies produce. With this in mind, I am happy to talk about a 3D printed speaker. This was recently featured on Gavin Newsom's TV show when our CEO, Carl Bass, was his guest.

The speaker design and manufacture were actually a collaboration among 3 Autodesk employees.

• Director of Strategic Innovation, Maurice Conti
• Technical Assistant to the CTO, Arthur Harsuvanakit
• Intern, Evan Atherton

The overall shape and surface texture of the speaker enclosure was designed in Autodesk 3ds Max (using topology modifier, bend and wave modifiers, and FFD lattice). The pieces were then exported as STL files and imported into Autodesk Inventor using the Mesh Enabler for Inventor plug-in available on Autodesk Labs. Evan noted "This project would've been waaayyyy harder without that plug-in."

• Download Mesh Enabler for Autodesk Inventor via Autodesk Labs

computer renderings: 3ds Max (left two) and Autodesk Showcase (right)

From there the parametric items (like the screw and fastener holes), top, bottom, and back panel were added in Inventor. The design was then printed on 3D printers located right here in our Autodesk Gallery at One Market in San Francisco. The speaker enclosure is a combination of flexible and rigid material, printed simultaneously, so no assembly was required. All that had to be done was to install the actual speaker drivers themselves into the enclosure. The result was a high performance speaker with great acoustical properties.

Happy Halloween. Now let's go listen to "The Monster Mash."

Tricking out and treating are alive in the lab.

Distinguished Research Scientist Andrew Hessel

He's gonna make it after all.

	Singularity University (SU) is a learning institution in Silicon Valley whose aim is to "assemble, educate and inspire a cadre of leaders who strive to understand and facilitate the development of exponentially advancing technologies and apply, focus and guide these tools to address humanity’s grand challenges." Andrew is a faculty member and advisor for the Biotechnology and Bioinformatics track at SU, located at the NASA Ames Research Park campus. // more
	Along with Jayson Tymko and John Carlson, Andrew is a co-founder of the world's first cooperative biotechnology company, the Pink Army Cooperative whose aim is to fundamentally change the way medicines are developed. They are building a development system able to make drugs for just one person at a time. The goal is to simplify the science, manufacturing, testing, interpretation, risk, and liability -- all saving money and years of effort. // more
	While not teaching at SU or fostering the Pink Army Cooperative, Andrew is also part of our Bio/Nano Programmable Matter team at Autodesk. This group investigates the design spaces enabled by bio/nanotechnology. They collaborate with researchers around the world to co-envision the paradigms and tools needed to understand and exploit the intersection of design with life and materials sciences. This area of research has far-reaching implications such as designing nanoscale robots for cancer treatment, 3D printing replacement organs using one's own cells, to growing appropriately rigid yet flexible material to construct transparent aircraft. // more

Distinguished Research Scientist, Andrew Hessel, works in our One Market Street, San Francisco Office. Actually he sits a few yards from where I stand on the second floor. Andrew got a chance to visit our corporate headquarters in San Rafael and was jumping for joy (and not just because the San Francisco Giants just won the World Series).

Andrew is involved in a variety of activities.

For more on this topic, check out this story on the Atlantic co-written by Andrew:

• Hacking the President's DNA

That article is rather long and chock full of fascinating information on biological engineering. Andrew was kind enough to provide me with a summary:

• The U.S. government is surreptitiously collecting the DNA of world leaders, and is reportedly protecting that of Barrack Obama.
• Decoded, these genetic blueprints could provide compromising information. In the not-too-distant future, they may provide something more as well -- the basis for the creation of personalized bioweapons that could take down a president and leave no trace.
• In contrast, rapid advances in genomic technologies could produce benefits such as personalized medicines.
• The potential of this technology for enormous good or harm brings the need for more sophisticated real-time biological monitoring and threat assessment.

Biology is alive in the lab.

Newsweek ranks Autodesk as one of the world's greenest companies

image source: Newsweek

I am thrilled that Newsweek ranked Autodesk as one of the world's greenest companies. For its fourth annual Green Rankings, Newsweek examined the environmental performance of the 500 biggest public companies in America and the 500 biggest in the world.

• Autdoesk is #21 among the top 500 companies in the United States.
• Autodesk is #6 among Information Technology & Services companies.

The Newsweek rankings are based on 3 factors: environmental footprint, management, and disclosure. I guess it should not have been that much of a surprise. For years our CEO, Carl Bass, has said he wants Autodesk to be a good, great, and important company.

• Good in that we are a good corporate citizen. We watch how much we travel, how much energy our computers use, and how we can reduce waste (e.g., compostable corn starch cutlery in our break areas, LEED Platinum facilities).
• Great in the return to our stockholders.
• Important in that the work that our customers do makes a difference in the world.

See the full article for yourself.

Elation is alive in the lab.

Upcoming LUMA Institute SF Workshop

The LUMA Institute is an educational institution dedicated to good design. Next week LUMA will have another SF LUMA workshop, this time teaming up with Mark Hatch and the gang over at TechShop. The workshop will cover human-centered design -- something near and dear to Autodesk's heart.

You can register online.

Raspberry Pi: Poly want a cracker?

Recall that our CTO got his hands on some Raspberry Pi computers and held an internal Autodesk contest to supply them to software developers.

• Internal Raspberry Pi Contest: And the winners are...

One of the recipients was Software Architect for Solver Technology Research, Franco Costa. I reported on his initial progress on using the Raspberry Pi to train his parrot to talk.

• Our first Raspberry Pi Progress Report: Teaching A Parrot To Talk

Franco sent me an email describing his progress, and I thought I would share it with you.

---

Since getting the basic Raspberry Pi system working, I have been hard at work of acquiring the components needed for my project: installing, learning, and implementing the specifics I needed. The components I am using are Python and open source softwares: Friture (running on Python) and Audacity (pre-compiled). Learning how to source and install onto Linux all the Python libraries which were required by Friture, including Cython, was one of the learning steps for me, but it is hardly ground breaking, being a basic aspect of using Python applications on Linux (not unique to the Raspberry Pi).

Last week (while on leave) I finished the modifications to Friture which completed my customized implementation, so now I have a working system which can deliver what I set out to do. Based on the frequency spectrum breakdown of voices detected, the Raspberry Pi can now play back selected phrases for the parrot to learn:

1. When the parrot's voice is detected, the Raspberry Pi will play the new phrase I want him to say whenever requesting food. Food is currently his only trigger for speaking. Whenever he sees us with food, he says "Hello Billy" — meaning that he wants some food (not exactly an appropriate phrase, but fun all the same). My aim has been to retrain him to say something more appropriate.

2. When my voice is detected, the Raspberry Pi will play a greeting to me which I want the parrot to learn to mimic.

3. If I can get enough differentiation between frequency spectrums inputs, I will also add individual greetings for other family members.

Whether the parrot manages to learn these new phrases will take time. They are said to be hard to re-train once adult. This bird was already 18 years old when he first came to us a few months ago, but their life expectancy can be as high as 80 years.

Apart from the overall project outcome, there may also be a few other nuggets of generally useful information which could be written up at some stage, such as avoiding unnecessary CPU drains. Unlike some of the other Raspberry Pi winners, I choose to do all my development directly on the Raspberry Pi, not through SSH or by cross-compiling from more expensive systems. Part of my rationale was to demonstrate that the Raspberry Pi could be used as the complete package rather than just a peripheral downstream device.

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Franco's parrot is a lovely bird - beautiful plumage. The Raspberry Pi is a lovely computer - beautifully programmable.

Computer-aided bio-mimicry is alive in the lab.

My experience with oDesk: Part 2

This is a follow up to my post:

• oDesk: Is contract employment the new full time employment?

As part of oDesk's process, because I inquired about my project's relegation to private status, a trouble ticket was opened in my name. Fair enough. The second reply listed in my original blog article can therefore be considered the reply to my trouble ticket. As any company seeking to improve its service, the next step of the process is inquire regarding how I feel about the resolution of my issue. I received this:

I was not sure how to answer. Certainly I don't expect oDesk to do anything more. On the other hand, I still don't understand what I did wrong to deem my project in violation of their guidelines. So I went with unsatisfied and included a link to my blog article so they could get the full story from my perspective.

My first ever visit to the oDesk web site was on Monday, September 24. I registered as a new user and posted my job the same day. On Tuesday, September 25 I looked through my list of eight viable contractors, followed up with them, and hired one -- all in the same day. So imagine my surprise when I received the following message on Wednesday, September 26.

My total cost is $300. The contractor gets $270 and oDesk keeps $30 (10%). So for $30 I am not expecting a world of service from oDesk. I just needed them to help connect me with a contractor who can update the Crown Harbor web site. They achieved that in stellar fashion.

Rapid web development is alive in the lab.

Movies and Music as Harbingers of Software as a Service

The world is changing. Products are being replaced by services, transactions are being replaced by relationships, and functions are being replaced by experiences. This is quite evident to me in my dealings with movies and music.

Back in the day I used to watch movies by renting VHS tapes. Each movie rental cost $3 which at the time was a decent amount of money, so much so, that you would really hate it if you rented a bad movie. In addition you would never take a chance on renting a movie you were unsure of because of the cost involved. Then along comes Netflix. Instead of paying for each movie individually, you pay a monthly fee and watch as many movies as you want. As such you will certainly give lesser known or "not sure if I am going to like it" movies a chance, since if they turn out badly, you simply return them, and the next movie in your queue takes its place at no additional cost. With the advent of streaming movies, even the return of the movie disc is becoming obsolete. For discs I do rent, they lack special content like deleted scenes or alternate endings. I am not sure whose idea this is. Perhaps it is the movie studios who want to entice you to buy the movie instead of renting it so you get the extras? Perhaps it is Netflix who wants the experience of viewing via disc to equal that of streaming the movie instead? When you think about it, you don't want to own the movie, you just want to be able to watch it.

Back in the day I also used to buy albums and CDs. Music was different from movies. Most movies you watch only once. With music you listen so many times that the words become committed to memory. So renting music never really entered the equation, but the concept of eliminating the media certainly did. When you think about it, you don't want to own an album or CD, you want to hear the songs when you want to. Along comes iTunes and makes this a reality. No more media.

I have the following devices:

device	use	local files
DELL XPS laptop	personal	9,302 songs
iPad	personal	9,302 songs
iPod Shuffle	personal	300 songs
HP EliteBook laptop	work
newest iPad	work
iPad 2	personal/work	9,302 songs
iPhone 4GS	personal/work	9,302 songs

Now along comes a service called Spotify. I am late to the party as many of my friends and family already use this service. Here's the deal with Spotify. There is a premium level of the service where you pay $9.99 per month and can listen to all of the music in their repository. You can stream the music to all of your devices as long as you use one device at a time.I am trying a free 30-day trial and have noticed a few things I don't yet understand.

• There are many songs to choose from. Like iTunes, I can make play lists. The lists can include songs I own (local files) as well as songs I don't own (streamed from the Spotify servers).

• When I search for music to play, I find the same album more than once even though I don't own it. Why does it do this? This does not happen when I look for movies on Netflix or music on iTunes. I am now having trouble reproducing this, so maybe that was a one-time thing. It happened when I looked for songs by Peter Frampton and again when I looked for songs by Sting. Both of those were on the same day I first started using Spotify.

• I am able to listen to music just fine at work (using my HP EliteBook) or at home (using my DELL XPS) since my laptops are connected to the internet via a wireless network. Unlike with iTunes, I don't have to sync my devices to a master PC that has all of my purchased music. Microsoft Windows is supported just fine. All of my devices are Spotify-capable, except for the iPod Shuffle, which can only obtain songs by syncing to my PC.

• I am able to retain my iPad as my musical juke box. Right now it has all of my iTunes music on it and is connected to a Bose SoundDock unit. The iPad will stream songs from Spotify over the wireless network just as if the songs were stored as files on the device itself. For songs on the iPad because it was synced from my home PC, Spotify will also play them.

• On Saturday I tried to listen to streamed music using just my phone while raking up leaves and pulling weeds in the garden. My iPhone 4GS stopped playing the first song I tried to listen to because the server believed "another device is already using Spotify." Even though my iPad was not actively playing anything at the time, the fact that the Spotify app was open on the device made the server believe it was in use. I went inside and exited the application. The song on my iPhone resumed playing but as soon as I left the garage, I was out of range to reach my wireless router, so the service stopped again with an error message "Unable to complete song." I then turned off my phone's WiFi, and the song resumed playing using the AT&T 4G service. I found this to be horrible. I could not get through an entire song without some type of interruption. There were long pauses between songs - much like what would happen when "buffering..." video in the early days of YouTube. This is probably a limitation of the AT&T network, and not Spotify's fault, but it does impact my overall experience. Spotify has some sort of "store songs locally" offline mode that I need to investigate.

• So far from what I can tell, Spotify does not record any music history. I do not think it records the last time I listened to each song. Typically I use this to create an annual analysis (2009, 2010, 2011) and inject variety by avoiding listening to songs I see that I have recently heard. Although it does create an XML file with listening history, by default, Spotify shares what I am listening to on Facebook. I have never heard a Justin Bieber song, but if I wanted to see what all of the fuss is about, my Facebook status would make me appear to be a fan. There is a Private Session mode to avoid this.

So at this point I am still feeling Spotify out. In the long run, I know this is the way to go. I just want to hear music when I want to hear music. Much like not wanting to own movies, I don't want to own little files in the same way I don't want to own Blu-Ray movies or compact discs.

Services are alive in the lab.

Autodesk One Market Office: A Window to the Past

"They say dreams are the windows of the soul — take a peek and you can see the inner workings, the nuts and bolts."
Henry Brommel

Though Autodesk has offices worldwide, I work at our office at One Market in San Francisco. I currently work on the second floor, which happens to also be the location of the Autodesk Gallery, but in the past I have also worked on the fifth and fourth floors. Recently as part of expanding our space in San Francisco, we leased space on the fourth floor of an adjacent building. To make it easier for employees in the two buildings to collaborate, a portal to connect the two fourth floors was constructed.

Imagine our surprise when the construction team unearthed a window that was not supposed to be there. According to the architectural drawings, this window did not exist.

We felt that this architectural detail provided a window to the past. Rather than replace the window, we covered it with a blast-proof pane of glass that meets current fire codes.

On close inspection we could see that the window was afixed with metal plates as a sign of pride in its craftsmanship.

They were been painted over long ago, but the two metal plates read:

• FIRE PROOF WINDOW
  MADE BY FOREVER CORNICE WKS
  SAN FRANCISCO

• UNDERWRITERS LABORATORIES
  FIRE WINDOW BRAKE
  7074

Our building was originally a railway station. It is unfortunate that we had out of date plans. Over the years our building has undergone many renovations - some specifically for earthquake retrofitting. If only the building owner had one set of plans that could have been shared and evolved as the changes were made? Had it been around way back when, perhaps Autodesk 360 could have played a part? The window is indeed from the past but is a reflection of design management in the present and future.

Historical preservation is alive in the lab.

oDesk: Is contract employment the new full time employment?

I work for Autodesk. In the past I have worked for other companies like Océ, Buzzsaw.com, GTE, and Honeywell. What all of these jobs have had in common is that they required at least 40 hours per week, included a guaranteed salary, medical benefits, and other perks as part of a total compensation package.

I happen to be on the board of my homeowners association. This is not a paying job. I am a volunteer. The perks are that I am "in the know" about what's going on in the community and can help do my part to make where we live better for my family and neighbors. I happen to be the association Secretary, so I manage our association web site. Actually I created the web site. Before I was Secretary, Crown Harbor didn't really have a web presence.

My work at Autodesk involves maintaining the Autodesk Labs site, which I do with an Admin tool that is Drupal-based.

I know old-school HTML quite well and frequently edit the HTML directly that makes up blog posts like this one. It is this knowledge that let me create the Crown Harbor web site using just a text editor called TextPad without any fancy tools. The problem with my knowledge is that it is indeed old school. Web sites today use a different approach than what I have learned in my past jobs. I summarized the issues on a web page.

Now enter a company called oDesk. oDesk is a different breed of company. Though it has a few full-time employees, the vast majority of its employees are contractors. The contractors do not receive a guaranteed salary and benefits. They only get paid when they work. oDesk connects people with jobs to people who want to work.

I was able to post a job on oDesk (the HTML page I created) and get bids on having the site updated so that its architecture would be more modern. I would then take what the contractor did on a few of the pages and apply it to the rest of the site. I would then maintain the site going forward using what I have learned from the files updated by the contractor. Simple enough?

Within 24 hours of my job posting, I received 8 bids from contractors all around the globe (e.g., Singapore, India, United States), but I also got this:

I inquired as to why and got this:

Is it me? I thought my job description on the HTML page covered function, style, performance, and schedule -- all of the basics. I feel I presented the information in a thorough, detailed, and serious way. I admit I did not have intermediate deliverables because I am asking a contractor to update 3 files. I didn't relay any of my "company" history because this is a job I am personally funding for the benefit of my association and to increase my own web knowledge.

With regard to the 8 contractors who bid on my job, I asked some follow up questions, and selected one. I was able to pay $300 to oDesk using my PayPal account. It was just that easy. Let's see how this turns out.

Trying a new business model for web development is alive in the lab.

Autodesk in the J.P.Morgan Chase Corporate Challenge

Do I look happy to be there or what?

I am not a runner. I am just a good employee. That's why I participated in the J.P.Morgan Chase Corporate challenge on Wednesday night. Recall that I get so little exercise that I decided to convert my office layout. Autodesk Labs: I am a stand-up kind of guy That's right. I am so out of shape that I consider standing as a form of exercise. So why did I do this? Well during the 2011 J.P.Morgan Chase Corporate Challenge Series, the foundation donated more than $600,000 to not-for-profit organizations throughout the cities where the races were held. I was happy to be a part of Autodesk's contribution to this program. Actually we were part of the largest field in the 28-year history of the San Francisco Corporate Challenge — a capacity crowd of 10,000 participants from 367 companies.

The Autodesk team T-shirt designed for the event won the award for the most creative design.

The shirts were printed using eco-friendly inks.

I finished in 42:27 - horrible. Our CFO finished in under 24 minutes, and he looks at spreadsheets all day. During a part where I walked instead of ran, I was actually passed by a man who was physically challenged. I admire that.

The impetus for my stand-up desk was that my FitBit pedometer showed that I hardly ever get 10,000 steps in a day - the goal for active, healthy people. My run/walk of the 3.5 mile course plus walking to/from the event (from work) did get me almost 20,000 steps out of the deal.

Once, and I mean once, I walked over 35,000 steps in a day.

Corporate citizenship is alive in the lab.

Welcome Home Lcpl Steven Sheppard

The wife of one of Steven's buddies hung this before our and his arrival.

On Saturday I woke up at 6:30 am out of the excitement of the day. My wife, Sheryl, and I drove our son Steven's pickup truck from Alameda, California to the Marine Combat Training Center at 29 Palms, California. He purchased the truck from his grandfather (Paw Paw) who passed away in June. The truck was Paw Paw's pride and joy. We departed at 9:00 am and arrived at 5:00 pm. Our GPS directed us on a route that avoided the traffic in Los Angeles which allowed us to see a part of the California we had not seen before.

Earlier in the day Steven had been in contact with us. He and his fellow Marines had flown from Afghanistan, where they had been fighting for the last 7 months, to Kurdistan, to Germany, to Maine, to Riverside, California. His group of 220 returning Marines then took a bus to 29 Palms. They turned in their weapons, got assigned dorm rooms, and then were turned over to waiting relatives. The turnover was supposed to happen between 9:30 pm to 10:30 pm but did not actually happen until 12:15 am. The family reunions happened at a baseball field on base. Unfortunately the lights were on a timer that automatically turned them off at midnght. It was a long wait but worth it.

Sheryl and I couldn't help but notice the rather large collection of small children who waited with us. Many of them had signs attached to their strollers like "Believe it or not, I will be hugging my Dad for the first time." Shortly after being reunited, one 2 year old was being carried by her returning Marine when she asked "Dad do you remember me?" So although the 7-hour wait seemed like an eternity for us, the price for war is far higher for the little ones, and even more so for those whose loved ones did not return.

Fortune is alive in the lab.

Toward Making Facial Recognition As Easy As Pi

Hey that's Carl Bass - let him in (or not). Our CEO has the programming world (Raspberry Pi unit) in his hand.

Recall that we had a Raspberry Pi contest:

• Internal Raspberry Pi Contest: And the winners are...

Software Architect for AutoCAD products, Kean Walmsley, won one of these small computers. He is sharing his story of how he is programming it as part of a security camera system to recognize his friends as they approach his door.

• Through the Interface: Creating a motion-detecting security cam with a Raspberry Pi – Part 1
• Through the Interface: Creating a motion-detecting security cam with a Raspberry Pi – Part 2

Storytelling is alive in the lab.

United States employees take Labor Day off

We'll be getting back to the lab.

Autodesk employees have the day off in honor of Labor Day. As noted on Wikipedia, Congress enacted the holiday in 1882 as "a day off for working citizens." The holiday signals the end of summer. Many educational institutions start the new school year immediately after this holiday. Tomorrow we will get back to work and respond to feedback on our technology previews.

Relaxation is alive in the lab.

Autodesk Labs: I am a stand-up kind of guy

Last night facilities reconfigured my office:

Years ago the company supplied each employee with a FitBit pedometer. I have used mine every day ever since. This device showed me that although the goal is 10,000 steps per day, I rarely get that many. Last year I actually canceled my NFL Red Zone football package when I moved only 900 steps in an entire Sunday.

To get the ball rolling, I underwent an ergonomic evaluation of my existing sit-down configuration.

I also got a note from my primary care physician indicating that a non-sedentary work environment would be beneficial for my long-term health, and facilities granted my request.

I am now a stand-up kind of guy - no more sitting down on the job. With apologies to John Milton, they also serve who only stand and type.

Standing is alive in the lab.

YouTube: Autodesk Octo-Copters supporting Louise Leakey

As a follow up to Into Africa: How Autodesk is Helping Create Archaeology 2.0, my colleague, Gonzalo Martinez, posted this video of he and Shaan Hurley working with Dr. Louise Leakey in Africa.

The thought is that one day the search for fossils could be crowd-sourced using high quality video and 3D modeling.

Archeology is alive in the lab.

Internal Raspberry Pi Contest: And the winners are...

Our CTO, Jeff Kowalski, got his hands on 8 Raspberry Pi units. He decided to have some fun with them by sponsoring an internal-Autodesk contest. Since Jeff had 8 of the devices, there would be 8 winners.

WHO:	Autodesk employees were eligible - not family members of employees. (We wanted to avoid employees pawning the whole thing off on their children to build.)
HARDWARE:	The Raspberry Pi is a credit-card sized computer that plugs into a TV and a keyboard. It’s a capable little PC which can be used for many of the things that your desktop PC does, like spreadsheets, word-processing, and games. It also plays high-definition video. By default, it runs the Debian OS, but it can also run other flavors of Linux. Those interested can learn all about it at http://www.raspberrypi.org/. There is even a quick start guide for those who are brand new to the concept as well as the device. Jeff has the Model B which features 2 USB ports and an Ethernet controller.
WHAT:	Each entrant described what he/she would do if given one of these Raspberry Pi computers. What problem would he/she solve? How would he/she use the Raspberry Pi to solve it?
WHEN:	The contest ran through July 31. Only the ideas needed to be submitted by the deadline. The timing of the actual implementations by the 8 winners was negotiated as prospective winners were contacted. Desired time frames are around 3 months.
WINNERS:	Winners were selected based on the uniqueness of the idea (the more novel, the better), ability to leverage the capabilities of the device (it is small), and the benefits from the idea's implementation (does some good for the world, makes a great blog article). The winners were selected by a committee from the Office of the CTO. In exchange for the Raspberry Pi that is theirs to keep, each winner will implement the solution and create a two and a half to three minute video demonstrating how the Raspberry Pi addresses the submitted idea and document the steps on Instructables.com.

This contest was very popular. There were 90 entries from among the many Autodesk offices around the world. Without any further adieu:

WINNERS	James Wedding diabetic blood sugar monitor Norman Hu hand-held computer for reading aloud to the blind Raju Nimbalkar & Manish Gupta integration of automobile to the cloud Franco Costa train parrot to talk (while he's at work) Ben Cochran web-enabled conference room projector Kean Walmsley Microsoft Kinect integration Ian Keough BIM viewer that accesses cloud Frederic Loranger personal cheerleader based on facial recognition
HONORABLE MENTION	Ian Pendlebury reality simulator with Microsoft Kinect David Thomasson autonomous Ball Maze exhibit for Autodesk Gallery Matthew Kleinmann Geiger counter Derrick Oswald graffiti monitor based on motion sensor Stephane Egger conference room energy reducer Wei Li surface computing system

Thanks to everyone who entered. I look forward to blogging about these solutions as they are developed. These devices are very powerful but only cost between $25 to $35.

Winning is alive in the lab.

RIP Stephen Covey

RIP Stephen Covey - author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. The list of habits includes:

1. They take initiative. “Be Proactive.”
2. They focus on goals. “Begin with the End in Mind.”
3. They set priorities. “Put First Things First.”
4. They only win when others win. “Think Win/Win.”
5. They communicate. “Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood.”
6. They cooperate. “Synergize.”
7. They reflect on and repair their deficiencies. “Sharpen the Saw.”

Thanks to getAbstract for the ability to get this list quickly to honor the man.

Reflection is alive in the lab.

YouTube: Hyatt Chicago Global Volunteer Initiative

Earlier today I blogged that although my daughter, Stephanie Sheppard, has a totally different job (PR for Hyatt Hotels and Resorts) than I do (Program Manager for Autodesk Labs), we were both able to enjoy the same reading material.

Book Review: Reputation Rules by Daniel Diermeir

Well it turns out we have something else in common - both of our companies are community-minded. Hyatt employees spend many volunteer hours like Autodesk employees. It's great to see goodwill in action. If you have 2 minutes and twenty-nine seconds, check it out:

Watch on YouTube

Volunteerism is alive in the lab.

About Our Flag

While attending Veteran's Day ceremonies this year, I learned a few things. Did you know that at military funerals, the 21 gun salute stands for the sum of the numbers in the year 1776? 1+7+7+6 = 21. As part of a military funeral, a flag is folded 13 times and given to the family. Many think the number 13 comes from the original 13 American colonies, but that is not correct. Here is the explanation that was read aloud on Veteran's Day in Alameda.

	The 1st fold of our flag is a symbol of life.
	The 2nd fold is a symbol of our belief in eternal life.
	The 3rd fold is made in honor and remembrance of the veterans departing our ranks who gave a portion of their lives for the defense of our country to attain peace throughout the world.
	The 4th fold represents our weaker nature, for as American citizens trusting in God, it is to Him we turn in times of peace as well as in time of war for His divine guidance.
	The 5th fold is a tribute to our country, for in the words of Stephen Decaur, "Our Country, in dealing with other countries, may she always be right; but it is still our country, right or wrong."
	The 6th fold is for where our hearts lie. It is with our heart that We pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, Indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all.
	The 7th fold is a tribute to our Armed Forces, for it is through the Armed Forces that we protect our country and our flag against all her enemies, whether they be found within or without the boundaries of our republic.
	The 8th fold is a tribute to the one who entered into the valley of the shadow of death, that we might see the light of day.
	The 9th fold is a tribute to womanhood, and mothers. For it has been through their faith, their love, loyalty, and devotion that the character of the men and women who have made this country great has been molded.
	The 10th fold is a tribute to the father, for he, too, has given his sons and daughters for defense of our country since they were first born.
	The 11th fold represents the lower portion of the seal of King David and King Solomon and glorifies in the Hebrews eyes, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
	The 12th fold represents an emblem of eternity and glorifies, in the Christians' eyes, God the Father, the Son, and Holy Spirit.
	The 13th fold, or when the flag is completely folded, the stars are uppermost reminding us of our nations motto, "In God We Trust."

After the flag is completely folded in this way and tucked in, it resembles a cocked hat - reminding us of the soldiers who served under General George Washington, and the Sailors and Marines who served under Captain John Paul Jones, who were followed by their comrades and shipmates in the Armed Forces of the United States, preserving for us the rights, privileges and freedoms we enjoy today.

Our constitution separates church and state. The relationship between the two is not carved in stone. IMHO folding the flag in this manner is a tribute to those who have fallen as well as the many religions that are practiced in our country.

American history is alive in the lab.

Jerry Price: 1935 - 2012

I am sad to announce that my father-in-law has passed away. On January 11, 2012 he was diagnosed with leukemia. Although he participated in a clinical trial where a lot was learned that will benefit other potential cancer treatment recipients, the disease and treatments eventually took their toll.

With the advent of grandchildren, Mr. Price came to be known as "Paw Paw."

He was always there for all of us.

Our family will always remember the good times we had with Paw Paw. He was a loving husband, fair-minded father, proud grandfather, and true friend to all. Mr. Price was the most honest man I had ever met. He will be missed by all who knew him.

"And the man who would be Santa slips into the room
And the hour of daylight's yet to come, but he hopes they don't wake too soon
All the presents wrapped in paper and tied with a bow
The children sleep upstairs and Santa works below
And he can hear the children dreaming
And he says
All I want is for you to have
A life you love and live
Take from me all I have to give
Because you are in my heart
Now the old man sits and tells of days when time stood still
The hours always seem to fade but the memory never will
And all the love that you gave me
And all the dreams in the night
And I just want to thank you while the day's still light
But I can see the sun is setting"
-- "The Man Who Would Be Santa", Running on Ice, Vertical Horizon, 1995.

Off to Italy (Rome, Montepulciano, Florence) - one day

Although I have written at least one blog post every business day since February 14, 2006, all good things come to an end. Actually during my 6 week sabbatical I had guest authors, but this vacation is less than 2 weeks long, so my blog will go silent until my return. As I mentioned yesterday, showing up for work is the first step in blogging.

My wife, Sheryl, and I are off to Italy for a vacation. When I was 6 years old, my family went to South America. When I was working on Autodesk Volo View, Jason Pratt and I visited customers in London. When I was working as a DWF Technical Evangelist, I manned a booth at an HP printing conference in Malta. While working for Océ I visited the Netherlands twice. Recently I spent one day in Cozumel as part of a Rock Boat cruise. Other than that, I have stayed in the United States. It's high time I see the world.

UPDATE: Unfortunately we have had to cancel our trip. My wife visitied her father at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. She was with him when he passed.

Travel will one day be alive in the lab.

Blogging is easy: All I have to do is show up for work and stuff happens

Here's an example of my work life. On Thursday, May 17, Senior Product Manager for Civil Products, Dave Simeone, sent me this message:

From: Dave Simeone
Sent: Thursday, May 17, 2012 7:15 AM
To: Scott Sheppard
Subject: FW: LIVE - Productivity Tools for AutoCAD Civil 3D 2012
Hi Scott – Can you post something on your blog about the availability of the former Point Cloud Extraction extension for Civil 3D 2012 being graduated to sub center? This went up last Friday – I meant to send you a message. I can provide you with some verbiage if you’d like.
Thanks
DAS

Five minutes later I posted this to my blog:

This elicited the following email response from Dave:

From: Dave Simeone
Sent: Thursday, May 17, 2012 7:41 AM
To: Scott Sheppard
Subject: RE: LIVE - Productivity Tools for AutoCAD Civil 3D 2012

You are a machine!

Thanks

As an Autodesk Labs guy, I am fortunate to have contact with all divisions of the company. It's pretty easy to come up with material for It's Alive in the Lab. The blog articles practically write themselves. All I have to do is show up for work and material presents itself. Thanks to all of my teammates who supply me with material.

Prolificiency is alive in the lab.

Interview: Carl Bass at C2-MTL

Our CEO, Carl Bass, presented yesterday to about 1,000 people at the C2-MTL conference. Commerce + Creativity Montreal is a conference that seeks to explore creative answers to commercial questions.

Carl's strong message around innovation contrasted with many of the other "creative" and "innovative" presentations. Carl provided real direction about how to achieve those things, supported by great imagery, and presented in Carl's unique style. His presentation was very well received as observed via the Twitter stream and the nodding heads in the room.

Following the talk, Carl was interviewed for C2-MTL TV.

Colorful communication is alive in the lab.