It is Alive in the Lab

Feedback volume in the Autodesk Labs TPS Report

The other day, I blogged about activity and participant counting. Today's topic is feedback volume. Having worked for large companies like Honeywell, GTE, and Océ, I am a fan of the movie Office Space. So when I first started producing... Read more →

CEO Special Project: Table Design and Fabrication

This is what is what it looks like when dovetails cry. Team members Arthur Harsuvanakit and Lucas Prokopiak work on special projects for CEO Carl Bass. Carl once said "'If I ask a Product Manager, can our product do this?'... Read more →

Can anyone help identify this green Bay Area algae?

"What's it all about, Algae?" I have lived along the water for 7 years now. I have never seen this before. At low tide, there is a prevalent green algae. Can any of you biologists out there identify it? Greenery... Read more →

Bay Farm School: Third-Graders and The Amazing Race

Autodesk allows employees to spend up to 4 hours per month helping out in the classroom. My wife, Sheryl, and I are empty nesters, so it's been years since I have taken advantage of this generous Autodesk benefit; however, Sheryl... Read more →

Activity counting in the Autodesk Labs TPS Report

The other day, I blogged about participant counting. Today's topic is activity counting. Having worked for large companies like Honeywell, GTE, and Océ, I am a fan of the movie Office Space. So when I first started producing monthly reports... Read more →

Project Scorch retires from Autodesk Labs

Project Scorch was our free technology preview that let you play with fire. Actually, it helped you perform fire simulations within a structure. Project Scorch used the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS) to understand... Read more →

Participant Counting in the Autodesk Labs TPS Report

Having worked for large companies like Honeywell, GTE, and Océ, I am a fan of the movie Office Space. So when I first started producing monthly reports for Autodesk Labs, I named my reports the Technology Preview Strategy Report so... Read more →

Autodesk Applied Research and Innovation Group has FOUR stories to tell

As a software developer, I would work with: QA team members who would come up with use cases as a way to determine what test cases to create to test the software. Marketing team members who would come up with... Read more →

Experiment: A Real Decant-do Attitude

For years, I believed that only very old, full-bodied wines needed to be decanted. Recently, a friend, Peggy McDermott, let me know that it never hurts to decant any red wine. Sure enough, I googled how long to decant wines... Read more →

It's time for the talk: the wasps and the bees

The mascot of our local high school is the hornet. So I know what those look like in great detail; however, I wondered how different did a yellow jacket look compared to a hornet? So I looked for images on... Read more →

Book Review Part 6: The Principles of Product Development FLOW: Second Generation Lean Product Development by Donald G. Reinertsen

In a previous blog article, I mentioned how I was getting back to my programming roots and reading The Principles of Product Development FLOW: Second Generation Lean Product Development by Donald G. Reinertsen. I am in the process of reviewing... Read more →

Change Students' Lives; Vote for the Don't Crash My Drone Project in this NASA Competition

I have a HUGE favor to ask, and it will take only 3 minutes. You can change the lives of 4 Macedonian students (Team AVIS) who are participating in a NASA challenge with a "Don’t crash my drone" project. Their... Read more →

Autodesk Product Development Group continues to develop SimStudio collaboratively via Project Arro

Project Arro is an Invitation Only Technology Preview. This is not our normal public technology preview because the simulation team is interested in working exclusively with existing Autodesk Simulation users. Project Arro is designed to enable Autodesk Simulation Mechanical, Autodesk... Read more →

The Painting the Patio Deck Project

Recently, against my better wishes, my wife got me to hang accent lights outside on our patio. To her credit, the result turned out better than I had expected. The Patio Light Project Since we had gone to so much... Read more →

Can you help identify this painting?

A while back I wrote a blog post reaching out to It's Alive in the Lab readers to help identify a painting that my daughter saw and liked but could not recall its author. Request for Help Identifying a Painting... Read more →

Autodesk Labs in the news and "Hey look, it's a TPS Report."

Autodesk Labs has been in the news recently with: Engineering.com: "The Best of Autodesk Labs" To add a little context to this, I followed that article up with: It's Alive in the Lab: "Why Does Autodesk Have a Labs?" It's... Read more →

Book Review Part 5: The Principles of Product Development FLOW: Second Generation Lean Product Development by Donald G. Reinertsen

In a previous blog article, I mentioned how I was getting back to my programming roots and reading The Principles of Product Development FLOW: Second Generation Lean Product Development by Donald G. Reinertsen. I am in the process of reviewing... Read more →

Changes to the Autodesk Feedback Community Login Process are In Progress

Last week, Autodesk made changes to our single sign-on login process that is used for a variety of Autodesk communities such as Autodesk Labs and Autodesk Beta. Users will notice that there is now a 2 step process for accessing... Read more →

It's the Last Round of Feedback for the 2D to 3D Tool for Inventor 2017

The technology preview of the 2D to 3D Tool for Inventor has been around for some time. Last year, we considered not having the technology preview for Inventor 2016 because Inventor 2016 featured some DWG import improvements. Product Line Manager,... Read more →

The Pegboard Project

I keep all of my tools in 2 toolboxes that sit on a cabinet in my garage. This makes it easy for me to take my tools wherever I go. The problem is that I never go anywhere with my... Read more →

Autodesk Gallery: Life Science Exhibits

The Autodesk Gallery at One Market in San Francisco celebrates design — the process of taking a great idea and turning it into a reality. With about 60 different exhibits regularly on display that showcase the innovative work of Autodesk... Read more →

Transit Options Abound

I live in the city of Alameda which is located in between Oakland and San Francisco. I was invited to an Alameda Transit and Transit Demand Management planning meeting. I shared what I learned: Read the blog article. I am... Read more →

Book Review Part 4: The Principles of Product Development FLOW: Second Generation Lean Product Development by Donald G. Reinertsen

In a previous blog article, I mentioned how I was getting back to my programming roots and reading The Principles of Product Development FLOW: Second Generation Lean Product Development by Donald G. Reinertsen. I am in the process of reviewing... Read more →

Autodesk Research continues to evolve Project Draco easy-animation software based on feedback via Autodesk Labs

Project Draco is our free technology preview from Autodesk Research that makes animation as easy as sketching. The easy-to-use interface allows you to add a rich set of subtle, continuous animation effects to your images (e.g., JPGs, PNGs, GIFs) without... Read more →