It is Alive in the Lab

Multi-Threaded Solver for Robot Structural Analysis Now Available

Doing things in parallel is faster than doing them serially. So with this in mind, the Robot Structural Analysis team has provided an add-in that leverages the multicore architecture of computers to allow your analyses to proceed with more concurrency.... Read more →

Moldflow UI Technology Preview Now Available

"Seasons don't fear the [ribbon], nor do the wind, the sun, and the rain. We can be like they are. Come on baby, don't fear the [ribbon]. "The Reaper," Blue Oyster Cult, Agents of Fortune, 1976. We learned a great... Read more →

TR2N: December 2010

Hello - this is Brian Mathews. Scott is on sabbatical, and I've been invited to be a guest writer while he is out. Sorry for the long post, future posts will be short. This topic involves childhood passions. The Under-appreciated... Read more →

Be our guest, be our guest...

Today is day 1 of my sabbatical. As I mentioned on Thursday, there will some guest authors on this blog during my absence. As a way of introduction, I thought I would tell you who they are. Brian Mathews Vice... Read more →

Two More Blogs enter the Autodesk Blogosphere

Two new blogs launched this week: Vault customization/development blog by Doug Redmond: It’s All Just Ones and Zeros Northern Europe (German) geospatial blog by Matthias Liechti and Marcus Briglmeir: The Geospatial Navigator Check them out. For an alphabetical listing of... Read more →

October Plugin of the Month: Clipboard Manager for AutoCAD Now Available

We have our second plug-in of the month. Following in the footsteps of the Offset in XRef plugin, this month we bring you the Clipboard Manager for AutoCAD. This plugin was written by Mark Dubbelaar and edited by Kean Walmsley... Read more →

Look for Guest Authors on It's Alive in the Lab

We will fully relocate during my six weeks off. Autodesk has a sabbatical program where employees earn a 6-week sabbatical for every four years of continuous service. In turn, our vacation remains at two weeks per year regardless of years... Read more →

Facebook Nexus Site is Fun

My Facebook friend network depicted as a constellation Are you a Facebook user? If so, you might want to spend 5 minutes and play with a neat little tool I read about. Its called Nexus. If I recall my 6th... Read more →

Football is a game of inches; SaaS is a game of miles

You too can help us test AutoCAD, Inventor, and Revit in the cloud. On Saturday my undergraduate alma mater, University of Louisiana at Lafayette (ULL), played its rival school, Louisiana State University (LSU), in college football. LSU defeated ULL 31... Read more →

Cloud Computing is Like Electricity

Autodesk Labs Software Engineer, Frederic Loranger, submitted this article. The Computing Cloud Infrastructure One of the big tasks of the Obama administration is to upgrade our outdated electric grid infrastructure to support, manage, and distribute renewable energy generated with wind... Read more →

Autodesk Single Sign-On System Maintenance

Project Draw, Project Freewheel, Project Showroom, and Project Twitch rely on the Autodesk Single Sign-on login. This provides the convenience of having one user name and password for all things Autodesk. The other side of the coin is that when... Read more →

Try AutoCAD, Inventor, and Revit without installing them

What if your design application was in the cloud? Autodesk Labs team members Eddy Kuo and Frederic Loranger have been hard at work creating an environment where you can run trial versions of AutoCAD, Inventor, and Revit on remote servers.... Read more →

Announcing Autodesk SketchBook Mobile for the iPhone and iPod touch

Product Line Manager, Thomas Heermann, shared some good news with us today. We’re excited to announce that Autodesk is the first major design software company to offer an iPhone app for industrial designers and the creative community. Autodesk SketchBook Mobile... Read more →

Vault + Firefox = Desirable?

That Mr. Richard Feder of Fort Lee, New Jersey really gets around. He was recently using the Firefox Add-on for Autodesk Design Review and noted that it did not work from Autodesk Vault. So he inquired. Software Architect, Kumar Mettu,... Read more →

User Interfaces and Connectivity Make the World Seem Flat (but it's round)

Quiz: Quick, what's the city associated with area code 778? Not sure - read on to learn more about our AT&T Wireless horror story. Our son Steven has an iPhone. Our daughter has an iPhone. I have an iPhone. My... Read more →

Architecture for Humanity: And the winner is...

I got an email from Kate Stohr - Cofounder of Architecture for Humanity. Kate was happy to let us know that the winner of the 2009 Open Architecture Challenge: Classroom had been announced. http://www.openarchitecturenetwork.org/competitions/challenge/2009/awards Congratulations to all of the contests... Read more →

It's a done deal: Working in San Francisco

Today is my first day working at our One Market office in San Francisco. We purchased a town home in Alameda. I successfully commuted to work using public transit. After nearly five years of being remote, my work will now... Read more →

My Temporary Home Office

Yesterday I drove from Scottsdale, Arizona to Alameda., California The trip took 11 hours and 10 minutes. There was construction in Goodyear, Arizona where all cars merged into one lane and came to a full stop several times. There was... Read more →

Loads of Downloads So Far This Year

Since we were on a company furlough from August 31 through September 7, Kean Walmsley and I decided to get the September ADN Plugin of the Month ready a few days early. As a result I posted it to the... Read more →

Updated iCopy Installers Now Available: Is It My Name?

Todd Rundgren in concert. Photo courtesy of Tim Barrios. I just got back from Akron, Ohio where my wife, friends, and I attended a concert where Todd Rundgren performed his A Wizard, A True Star album in its entirety. One... Read more →

What's Your Recommendation for New Hardware?

I was contacted by Dan Bayer of Miron Construction. They inquired about new technology: They have questions surrounding the use of multi-touch technology and how to position their organization's hardware technology for potential upcoming Autodesk technology. Their initial thoughts were... Read more →

How do I make an angled wall in Project Dragonfly?

Showing his prowess with the latest in ASCII graphics, a Mr. Richard Feder of Fort Lee, New Jersey recently asked the Project Dragonfly team, I'd like to create a room that looks like: Product Manager, Patrick Aragon, was quick to... Read more →

Happy Labor Day

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... Read more →

I'm in Cleveland, Ohio

In observance of the company furlough, this week my wife and I along with friends have been in Cleveland for two days. We got to visit the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Pro Football Hall of Fame.... Read more →

Browser Wars: MSIE 8 is not winning

I have upgraded to Internet Explorer 8. Looking at the browsers of people who have visited the Autodesk Labs in the last 30 days, I am in the minority: What is preventing you from upgrading to Microsoft's latest browser? We'd... Read more →

Updated iCopy for Inventor Now Available

User feedback points us in the right direction. The iCopy for Inventor team has released an update. You can download the updated version from Free iCopy for Inventor Download on Autodesk Labs This new version corrects a problem where a... Read more →

First Plugin of the Month: Offset in XREF

Our first plugin of the month was written by our own Kean Walmsley. He first published it on his blog at: Through the Interface Mark Doel, from RMJM Hong Kong Ltd., provided the inspiration for this plugin and provided preliminary... Read more →