Ben Cochran is our software architect at Autodesk Labs. He has designed technologies like Project Freewheel and the DWF Printer Development Kit (PDK). Ben filed this report.
AU is always a fun and challenging event. This year the Labs team had ambitious goals. The Labs team ran the most complicated General Session ever plus nine booths on the Exhibit floor. Tackling this problem required lots of planning, custom software, innovation and teamwork. The Labs team did an incredible job making all this come together.
Challenge: The work started several months before AU with lots of thought and planning. The team decided what should be shown and what best reflects the nature of Autodesk Labs. Next, the team worked on putting all of the parts together. In the case of the General Session, the multi-touch wall, 3D-city, and the digital pen, custom prototype software was required.
While these are all things Labs and others inside of Autodesk currently had under development, the gap between software under development and a working reliable prototype is large. Software is built in parts much like a building. A building’s windows are manufactured separately from the elevators and the HVAC system. The building’s Architect has a plan as how the parts will fit together, but plans and renderings are needed to communicate the Architect’s concepts. In the same way plans and renderings are like a software prototype. These prototypes are critical for getting feedback from users and testing use case assumptions. When preparing for AU Labs, Engineering needed to take the many parts under development and bring them together in time for AU. Some of the final parts did not come together until hours before the show started, making for a very exciting event.
Fun: It is enjoyable to talk and work with users, who are excited about Autodesk Software and users who have recommendations about how to improve the tools they use. In the end, Autodesk writes software to enable users to do their job better and Autodesk Labs is exploring new and creative futuristic ways to do this. Being at AU is a great time to talk and listen to people, learning what users do and how they work from day to day. This provides the Labs team knowledge and understanding into new creative ways to better enable users in the future.
Thanks Ben. Recognizing that hard work yields great rewards is alive in the lab.