Sample December Autodesk Labs Feedback

Autodesk Labs is all about feedback. We'd much rather have a few developers spend a short amount of time on something and get your thoughts, instead of having many developers spend a long time on something before we get customer input. We find it works better that way. With the holiday season, December was actually a low volume month in terms of the feedback we received. I thought I would share some of it with you, so you can get an idea as to the types of comments we get. Like that old American TV show, Dragnet: The comments you are about to read are true. The names have been removed to protect the innocent. :-)

1. To: [email protected]
   "Is it possible to have Autodesk Design Review version which is working in Linux?"

2. To: [email protected]
   "Please take a look at the augmented reality tool for the free hand drawing of the 3D objects: http://arpainter.narod.ru"

3. To: [email protected]
   "I am working with AutoCAD 2007 and Maya 2008, in the college where I teach. I have an AutoCAD drawing of a floor plan, and I want to import it to Maya to create a 3D realistic walk through or to turn it into a game level. I follow the instructions from the blog relating to Autodesk Labs, The file seems to import from AutoCAD to Maya, but it only shows me 2 rectangles on a Y axis and no other details of the drawing. What am I doing wrong?"

4. To: thelabs@autodesk.,com
   "I was wondering if you could help me with some questions regarding Revit Architecture and the new GPU cards that are coming out of Nvidia? This is regarding the CUDA enabled GPUs with lots of processing cores, using the "tesla" technology by NVIDIA. Do you guys know what improvements we would see in the general performance of Revit as well as its rendering?"

5. To: [email protected]
   "I would like to use shrinkwrap but I have 64-bit Inventor 2009. Will you have shrinkwrap that will work with 64-bit before the next release of Inventor?"

6. To: [email protected]
   "I have downloaded the simulation preview and am running it with Inventor 2009. I have a model of a tank which I am trying to simulate the static load of the fluid inside to see the result on the bas plates and the supports... The model itself is not large; there are 286 parts with a file size of 1.4mb. There are 526666 nodes and 253495 elements. Are you able to give me an approximate time that I can expect the simulation to run?"

7. To: [email protected]
   "I was using your ASTP (Advanced Simulation Technology Preview) from Labs, I have IP2009 and IS2009. I wanted try STP and I used tutorials examples. I have always same problem during the mesh. " Volume Meshing Problem " Try un-checking the "eliminate small artifacts" in the model property. This may help, especially for very thin models."

8. To: [email protected]
   "I am an industrial/mechanical designer that uses Autodesk products as my primary design tools. I typically design with AutoCAD 3D, but also sometimes use inventor. I avoid Inventor because I believe it is easier to draw a solid model of any shape in AutoCAD, also all of the assembly constraints in inventor make even a small assembly cumbersome. My ideal program would basically be AutoCAD as it is but with part recognition and sheet metal unfolding. Also, a simple, basic, optional assembly constraint system would be nice. Are these items something that that could potentially make their way into AutoCAD at some point?"

9. To: [email protected]
   "I am using your great online Project Draw program. I am having a lot of trouble with the 'Autodesk // LABS_' logo/watermark at the bottom of exported pages. Sometimes it is nice and small. Sometimes it is blown up and huge and covers my flow diagrams."

10. To: [email protected]
    "I installed the carbon footprint add-on on my IV09 and it looks very promising. However, in another good effort from your team, would it be possible to get hand off the carbon footprint of the standard inventor material? Is there any place where I can get it? I try searching for the basic materials but I find it very difficult. I will appreciate if you can help me in this matter and start using the reports and give them to my customers, so them will realize their contribution of carbon to environment. Thank you and your team and keep up with the good work!"

Thanks for the feedback we receive each month. Here's looking forward to a voluminous 2009 in terms of feedback.