It is Alive in the Lab

Showroom: As easy as clicking and dragging/dropping

The response to Project Showroom has been almost overwhelming. End users and manufacturers both see the potential for this type of technology. Here's a YouTube video that shows just how easy it is to use. So play with the knobs.... Read more →

Autodesk Labs login will be useful for Project Freewheel

Autodesk Labs is about listening. One of the things you told us about Project Freewheel is that it lacked file management. You uploaded your designs to Project Freewheel and had no easy way to get back to them. To date... Read more →

YouTube Video: Doug Look and the Multi-Touch Wall

I had an earlier blog posting entitled: Touch Wall: Manipulating CAD data with just your hands. In the words of Paul Harvey, here's the rest of the story. Senior Strategic Designer, Doug Look, is our newest member of the Autodesk... Read more →

Autodesk Summer Internship: Practical Experience and Community Service Part 2

At Autodesk Labs, we're not just about technology. We're also about community. You may recall my post on Autodesk Summer Internship: Practical Experience and Community Service where one of our interns, Prasann Agrawal, was shown volunteering for Meals of Marin.... Read more →

iPhone not ready for prime time with Rich Internet Applications

As a follow up to my Project Freewheel and iPhone: mobile compatibility? post, I got some feedback from one of our Project Freewheel users: Scott, I saw the post about the iPhone and Project Freewheel. I just got mine over... Read more →

Simpsons Avatar and Project Showroom: same idea

This Simpsons avatar thing is really catching on. At first I portrayed myself in fun. I was disappointed in how generic the result was, so I picked Shaan Hurley because he had glasses and facial hair - something distinct. The... Read more →

Autodesk University Blog

Autodesk University is fast approaching. Volker Joseph and John Schmier are scheduled to teach a class entitled Beyond the Paper: Top 10 DWF Questions. They will be providing answers to the emailed questions that Volker often gets in response to... Read more →

Hardware Devices: Smaller and Larger; For One or Many

Where are user interfaces headed? At Autodesk Labs and throughout the company, we are working to figure that out. There are actually two completely different technologies emerging: Large collaborative screens with high costs in the tens or hundreds of thousands... Read more →

Humor: Scott Simpson

When I was authoring the Beyond the Paper blog, I posted an article entitled: One More Thing You Don't Know About Me. This was on the heels of the 5 Things You Don't Know About Me craze where bloggers were... Read more →

Updated Inventor Translator Add-ins for Inventor SP1 Configurations

We received some feedback from a few folks that the translators were not working with Inventor Service Pack 1 on some machines. As a result, we have posted updated versions of the translators. Translator Add-ins for Inventor and Inventor LT... Read more →

Inventor Translators: Corrected ZIP file for German Installer

The translator add-ins for Autodesk Inventor 2008 SP1 and the Autodesk Inventor LT Technology Preview are available in the following languages: English French German Japanese Russian Simplified Chinese Traditional Chinese Feedback from our users in Germany indicated that we had... Read more →

Looking for Customer Visit Participants

At Autodesk Labs, we're all about feedback. Normally people come to http://labs.autodesk.com. In this case, the tables have turned and we're willing to come to you. Do you use the DWF file format for reviewing designs in Manufacturing, Architecture, Building,... Read more →

Updated Inventor Translator Add-ins: support for SolidWorks added

We have released Technology Preview III of the Autodesk Inventor Translator Add-ins. These can be downloaded from the Autodesk Labs site: Translator Add-ins for Inventor and Inventor LT Using this chart from the FAQ, you can see that you can... Read more →

Some geeky details behind Freewheel on the iPhone

Image sources: Nokia.com and Apple.com As a follow up to my Project Freewheel and iPhone: mobile compatibility? post, I got some additional information from Autodesk Labs developer, Gyorgy Ordody. Gyorgy referred me to phones already featuring a full-fledged web browsing... Read more →

Project Showroom Now Available

Experience it before it's real - that's our company motto. Towards this end Autodesk Labs is happy to share a technology preview that demonstrates the concept. It's called Project Showroom. http://showroom.labs.autodesk.com Showroom is another one of our many solutions for... Read more →

Inventor SP1 not applicable for the Autodesk Inventor LT Technology Preview

In a continuing effort to provide high quality products, earlier this week Autodesk released Service Pack 1 (SP1) for Autodesk Inventor 2008 family of products. With this service pack, Inventor 2008 is now officially supported on Microsoft Windows Vista. Customers... Read more →

AUGI: Autodesk Inventor: Feature Recognition

President of the AutoCAD Local User Group in Bangalore, India, Sunith Babu has provided a tutorial for the Feature Recognition capability. The Feature Recognition application converts neutral 3D CAD (STEP, SAT, or IGES solids) models into fully featured Autodesk® Inventor™... Read more →

Japanese Mobile DWF Viewer using Project Freewheel

Application Sales Engineer, Makoto Ohura, has developed a mobile design viewing application using Project Freewheel. See mobileDWFviewer.wmv (4341.1K) Check it out. Viewing and markup up design data using a mobile device is alive in the lab. Read more →

Project Freewheel Team Members: Ben Cochran and Paul Cochrane

Autodesk Labs is our vehicle for getting feedback on technologies under development. Services, applications, and utilities actually originate in many parts of the company; however, Project Freewheel is one of our services that originated with the Autodesk Labs team itself.... Read more →

The Blueprint: Not Everyone Embraces New Technology

As someone who used to develop software for the reprographics industry, I read John Cronin's blog, The Blueprint, regularly. As a follow up to my Microsoft Surface: CAD data integration with personal devices? post, I feel compelled to pass this... Read more →

Autodesk Civil 3D: A customer pleasing process

In December 2006, Autodesk had an all hands meeting. The meeting included a mix of internal and external speakers. One of the presentations included a rap song written and performed by Autodesk employees. They were the winners of our mock... Read more →

Inventor.exe needs to reregister message

A Ms. Roberta Goddard emailed our Autodesk Inventor LT feedback alias: I have both Autodesk Inventor R10 and the Autodesk Inventor LT Technology Preview installed. Our company has not yet upgraded to Autodesk Inventor 2008, but the Autodesk LT Technology... Read more →

The suspension is killing me...

When you go to http://freewheel.labs.autodesk.com, this is what you see: A sample design, in this case suspension.dwf, is displayed. Many people have misinterpreted this to think that Project Freewheel is a demo site where the suspension is the only available... Read more →

Freewheel and Google Maps and Google Earth

Google images source: http://www.google.com Technical Evangelist, Brian Pene, has cooked up some samples that integrates Freewheel with Google technologies. View a design using Freewheel and Google Maps: http://maps.google.com/?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cadoogle.com%2FDWF_GoogleEarth.kml&ie=UTF8&ll=43.319808,-1.965866&spn=0.043711,0.073128&t=h&z=14&om=1 For those of you with the Google Earth plug-in, view a design... Read more →

New Autodesk Blog: Geospatial Made in France

As part of an ASU study abroad program, my daughter just got back from Paris. So it is with great pleasure that I announce that ISD Pre Sales Engineer, Gwenael Bachelot, will be authoring an Autodesk blog on the geospatial... Read more →

Autodesk AliasSTUDIO and SHOWCASE

Kevin Richards is a Solutions Engineer based in San Francisco. As part of his job, Kevin gets to demo AliasSTUDO and Autodesk SHOWCASE. What a fun job. I love the symmetry aspect of AliasSTUDIO. When you add geometry, it is... Read more →