It is Alive in the Lab

We've Got The Day Off and a Grocery Store Search App

"Friday, Friday, got to get down on Friday..." — Rebecca Black As I mentioned yesterday, we've got the day off. Autodesk employees in the United States will get back to responding to your Autodesk Labs feedback on Monday. For many... Read more →

Happy Thanksgiving

As always, but particularly 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... Read more →

Book Review: Industrial Megaprojects by Edward W. Merrow

Megafailures A megaproject is defined as a project costing over $1B. Edward W. Merrow's book, Industrial Megaprojects chronicles why big projects often fail. The getAbstract summary starts by citing some jarring examples: Shell Oil's $10B Sakhalin-2 project came in at... Read more →

#AU2013 Fun Facts for Autodesk Employees

Check out this from our creative team. Enlarge. Fun facts are alive in the lab. Read more →

Going to AU? Sign up for Test Drive Session.

This just in from the Autodesk Knowledge Network Team: Are you attending AU 2013? Sign up for a session to test drive our new Learning, Support & Customer Service web experience. These individual 45 minute sessions will take place on-site... Read more →

Temporary Links To Access Autodesk Labs Technology Previews while Site Is Down

The Autodesk Labs site is down. While our vendors, Cognizant and Noble Studios, work to bring it back up, I have created this blog page for Autodesk customers who wish to try technology previews. The table below has "download" or... Read more →

Let's Talk at AU

As I mentioned in a previous blog posting, in addition to providing a world-class educational opportunity, we want to continue to emphasize three additional things for our employees at AU: CUSTOMER CONTACT CONNECT CUSTOMERS TO THE RIGHT PARTS OF AUTODESK... Read more →

Autodesk Labs Site Is Down

The Autodesk Labs site is down. Our vendors, Noble Studios and Cognizant, have been notified. Read more →

Project Shapeshifter: Why didn't I think of that?

image source: Iain Fisher In 1993 Todd Rundgren released the first interactive album entitled No World Order. It was available as a CD-i on the Philips CD-i player. The device connected to your TV and stereo. As the album played,... Read more →

Tell Us Your Outside Story and Win A BioLite Camping Stove and $450 Gift Card

We're having a good old fashioned contest. The Answer Is Outside The Autodesk University conference is happening December 3-5 in Las Vegas. The theme for the keynote presentation is "The answer is outside." Why is that? To face business challenges... Read more →

Daylighting Analysis for Revit Now Available on Autodesk Labs

The Revit Daylighting Analysis plug-in uses the Autodesk 360 Rendering cloud service to provide very fast and physically accurate daylighting analysis from within Revit. It was specifically designed for architects to be able to use without learning the difference between... Read more →

Please Try Project Tally and Tell Us What You Think

Come, Mister tally man, tally me banana Daylight come and me wan' go home — Harry Belafonte, "Banana Boat," 1952. Most technology previews on Autodesk Labs come from various parts of Autodesk. There have been some exceptions. For example, some... Read more →

Autodesk Labs Community: Thanks for Another Great Quarter

The Autodesk fiscal year runs from February 1 through January 31. So our quarters are Feb-Mar-Apr, May-Jun-Jul, Aug-Sep-Oct, and Nov-Dec-Jan. On October 31 we ended Q3 of fiscal year 2014. In my role as Program Manager for Autodesk Labs, I... Read more →

Autodesk Labs Site Image Problems Corrected

This morning I believe I corrected the last of the missing image problems on the Autodesk Labs site. I have also reapplied the new Autodesk branding. Thank you for your patience and continued interest in technology previews available on Autodesk... Read more →

Scheduled Downtime for Autodesk Freewheel on November 16

This is my once-a-month copy/paste blog posting to let you know when Autodesk Freewheel will be unavailable. Years ago Project Freewheel graduated from Autodesk Labs. Project Freewheel users are now using Autodesk Freewheel — the production version. With our focus... Read more →

Autodesk Forums Back Up but Labs Site Still Missing Images

The forums are back up. You can visit them at: http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/Autodesk-Labs/ct-p/181 I am still having trouble with the old and missing images on the Autodesk Labs site itself. Unfortunately I have no ETA on a resolution. The site still works,... Read more →

Theme Albums for #AutodeskLabs Technology Previews

By the way, it's not Throwback Thursday. The Autodesk Labs site is temporarily running on an older instance while our service provider upgrades our servers. The temporary site has the old Autodesk branding and is missing some images. They tell... Read more →

Updated Project Pinocchio web service Now Available

Recall what I mentioned when Project Pinocchio first launched: We will continue to offer desktop applications bundled into Suites for years to come; however, eventually you are going to want to do everything from your mobile phone or tablet device.... Read more →

Autodesk Forums Will Be Down for an Upgrade Tomorrow

Tomorrow you will truly be able to say: A funny thing happened on the way to the forum. It was down. Most of the Autodesk Labs technology previews have an associated Autodesk discussion forum. I love it when users who... Read more →

#AU2013: Sign up for the Innovation Forums

I know many of you go to AU to attend hands-on classes where you learn about using our design applications and web services more effectively. I get that. But while you are at AU, you have an opportunity to also... Read more →

Project Khan Now Available on Autodesk Labs

We all recall the scene where Captain Kirk yells "Khaaan!" in reference to the evil character played by Ricardo "Corinthian Leather" Montalbán in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. I guess if the part had been played by Henry... Read more →

Evil Robot Under Construction?

Yesterday a package arrived. Look closely at the label on the box: Director of Strategic Innovation, Maurice Conti, and Engineer of Applied Innovation, Evan Atherton, were like children on Christmas morning: What will come from this? For some reason I... Read more →

In honor of Veteran's Day

Sheryl and Steven Sheppard upon his return from Afghanistan President Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address: Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all... Read more →

Design Night on December 5: The shape of things to come

Past Design Night is open to the general public, It is an events program at the Autodesk Gallery. At each event, guests explore a different theme — such as biomimicry, light, or robotics — that challenges the conventionally narrow definition... Read more →

..and the walls came down

"Well they blew the horns, and the walls came down." — "The Walls Came Down," The Call, 1983 It's Friday which is the day I avoid serious blog posts. We have a quote about design at the entrance to the... Read more →

Run Autodesk applications using just a browser

A long time ago in a galaxy far away I worked on Project Twitch when it was on Autodesk Labs. This was a technology preview of an experiment in reduced latency when running Autodesk applications on remote servers. This eventually... Read more →

2D to 3D Tool for Inventor Now Supports Inventor 2014

Do you ever get 2D layouts from AutoCAD and want to convert them to 3D models in Inventor? The free technology preview of the 2D to 3D Tool for Inventor allows you to quickly create 3D models of 2D-designed parts.... Read more →

Like a wooden boy, Project Pinocchio will come back to life on November 12 (after going down on November 11)

Project Pinocchio will be down for maintenance on November 11, 2013 at 9:00 am Pacific time and be back up on November 12, 2013. Despite our project's namesake, we're telling the truth — well that's our plan anyway. Our noses... Read more →

Project Shapeshifter Now Available via Autodesk Labs

Dr. Eyal Nir is a Distinguished Research Scientist at our Autodesk R&D Center in Tel-Aviv, Israel. I was thrilled when I received an email about a technology preview his team wanted to host on Autodesk Labs to let customer feedback... Read more →

Mercedes Benz Biome Car Appears In Mercedes Benz Commercial

I am an Autodesk Gallery Ambassador. One of our exhibits that I have blogged about is: Read about the Biome Car. Like most consumers, I only half-watch commercials as I watch TV. Actually if I am watching via DVR, I... Read more →

Project Sci-Viz for 3ds Max Graduates from Autodesk Labs

When a technology preview ends, one of three things can happen: The technology undergoes another cycle to get additional feedback. The technology preview retires. It could come back at a later date. It is just not available for now. The... Read more →

Project Dalton Now Available on Autodesk Labs

As documented on Wikipedia, "John Dalton FRS (6 September 1766 — 27 July 1844) was an English chemist, meteorologist, and physicist. He is best known for his pioneering work in the development of modern atomic theory, and his research into... Read more →