It is Alive in the Lab

The Rock Boat XX Was Out of This World #therockboat

The Rock Boat is the world's largest floating music festival. Although this was the twentieth voyage for The Rock Boat, it was only the ninth for my wife, Sheryl, and me. I guess it speaks volumes about the experience if... Read more →

Answering the Todd Rundgren 30 Song Day Challenge

"Blue Orpheus" "Number One Lowest Common Denominator" "The Surf Talks" "Liar" "Mountaintop" "Rock Love" "Drive" "Pissin'" "I Can't Stop Running" "Sweeter Memories" "Mercenary" "Does Anybody Love You?" "I Don't Want to Tie You Down" "Mated" "While My Guitar Gently Weeps"... Read more →

Global Garage Flooring and Design (@global_garage) Resurfaced Our Garage Floor

For Christmas, my mother-in-law got me the gift of getting our garage floor resurfaced because our next-door neighbor had his done, and my wife, mother-in-law, and I loved it. My neighbor used Global Garage Flooring & Design, so we went... Read more →

Darren Brooker's 3x3 Stories End of Year Email to Autodesk Employees

At Autodesk, our team focuses on strategic foresight. Strategic foresight is a practice of looking systematically at the future, understanding fragmented indicators that suggest possible futures, and developing a point of view about how to respond. We use imagination to... Read more →

My Favorite Things to Eat

With the Christmas season just passed and the song "My Favorite Things" still running around in my head, I thought I'd share my list of favorite foods to eat. Here they are in order of how much I like them:... Read more →

My Favorite Blog Posts of 2019

When I started this blog in April 2007, it was about showcasing free technology previews that were available via Autodesk Labs. Hence the name, It's Alive in the Lab. For some years now, it's about showcasing Autodesk technology. Despite the... Read more →

Merry Christmas from Autodesk

Merry Christmas. This week, Autodesk employees in the United States have the week off. This week bridges the Christmas and New Year's holidays. It's affectionately known as the week of rest. In days of Christmas past before we implemented the... Read more →

Throwback Thursday: Autodesk DWG TrueView: fun with words

August 05, 2006 Autodesk DWG TrueView: fun with words On June 13, 2006, I posted an article to my old blog, Beyond the Paper, that an updated Autodesk DWG TrueView was available. Since the update was available in multiple languages,... Read more →

A Home Inspection is a Good Idea even for a Newly Constructed Home

Happy Thanksgiving. Although today is Thanksgiving for Autodesk employees in the United States, it's also the one-year anniversary of my wife and I closing on our home in Cypress, Texas. As part of the purchasing process, our daughter asked if... Read more →

Cognitive Science and Computer Aided Design: Generative Cognition and Building Creative Capacity

In a previous post about the Autodesk Learning Engine, I noted that Autodesk is developing a learning engine based on cognitive science and the needs of our customers. The Autodesk Learning Engine is a tool-based platform that helps you navigate... Read more →

What is the Autodesk Learning Engine? #au2019

Today's Fusion 360 includes one example of the Autodesk Learning Engine in practice. The industries Autodesk serves are changing. As a result, our customers will need to learn new skills to adapt to these changes. With this in mind, Autodesk... Read more →

Could I use Autodesk Fusion 360 to Design a Bespoke Oreo-Dunking Glass?

Knowing my affinity for Oreo cookies, my son sent me a gift yesterday, for no reason, other than to show me the benefits of having a son who earns a paycheck. Being the grateful father that I am, I showed... Read more →

Greg Gonsalves - one Big Daddy of a Guy

“Wood feeds the fire which burns it.” – Leonardo da Vinci My wife's brother-in-law, Gregory Lyle Gonsalves, 67, lost his courageous fight against kidney cancer on November 4, 2019, with family by his side. Born in San Antonio and residing... Read more →

Autodesk: The Future of Making summed up in a 90-second Video

At Autodesk, we believe we can balance the inevitability of more with the reality of less by embracing the opportunity to design and make better. Design and making are alive in the lab. Read more →

Autodesk: The Future of Making

I am working on adapting our corporate Future of Making presentation into a whitepaper. Here is my original draft that I am going to evolve. Before I do, I thought I'd share what I had with It's Alive in the... Read more →

I Participated in a Capture the Flag Security Exercise

As Autodesk automates our customers' design and make processes, we handle more and more of our customers' data. We want to use customer data — both the design data customers create and data about how customers work — to create... Read more →

Adam Hockley: Plymouth Rock in 3D from 23 Pictures

Many of you may recall my Autodesk Labs days when I worked on Project Photofly — our technology related to photogrammetry — the process of creating 3D models from 2D images. You may also recall how there was a consumer... Read more →

LH Renovations did a Great Job to Rescue our Outdoor Kitchen

In a previous blog post, I mentioned that our pool contractor, Stonewall Pools, declared bankruptcy before completing our outdoor kitchen that we paid for in advance. Fortunately for us, only some granite countertop cutting and electrical outlet installation remained. Since... Read more →

Recently @PlanetFitness Updated Its iPhone App to the Detriment of Its User Interface

When I was learning to program, "user-friendly" was all the rage. A program's user interface, i.e., the ways that we interact with the software through menus, buttons, and data entry, had to be easy to use. Although today user-friendly has... Read more →

Attention Potential Autodesk Summer 2020 Interns: Be on the Lookout for Interview Opportunities in September-November

I often get contacted by college students in May or June who want to intern at Autodesk for the summer (June-August). I have had to break the bad news to them that our interns had already been hired, and that... Read more →

We're Getting a Pool but our Pool Builder Just Declared Bankruptcy (Part 3)

Last year we moved to Cypress, TX. Since Texas has hot weather in the summer, we decided to get a pool. Since Autodesk software is used to design and make things, I have been chronicling the construction process. In a... Read more →

SafeAtLast: 80 Internet of Things Statistics Infographic

When we develop tools for designing and making things, we consider that those things are used in the context of a system. In other words, those things are integrated with the environment in which they are used. That's one reason... Read more →

Samuel Macalister - Architect and BIM Specialist and the Revit 2014 Sample House

Today's blog post is a guest post from Samuel Macalister. Sam is a Senior Technical Sales Specialist, AEC/ENI in our Worldwide Field Operations (WWFO) Team. Our Worldwide Field Operations is our face of Autodesk to our customers. Through modern and... Read more →

The Future of Making in Two @Autodesk Slides

Here are two slides from our corporate Future of Making presentations. These pretty much say it all. MORE The global middle class is growing faster than at any time in history. 400,000 people join the middle class every day*. That’s... Read more →

Fear not: Autodesk is on top of New User Interfaces and the Changing Nature of Work

At Autodesk, our team focuses on strategic foresight. Strategic foresight is a practice of looking systematically at the future, understanding fragmented indicators that suggest possible futures, and developing a point of view about how to respond. We use imagination to... Read more →

Killing time at an Airport on a Sunday: How I Spent my Saturday Working in the Yard

I am working in San Francisco this week, so I am at the Houston Hobby airport on this fine Sunday. My Southwest Airlines flight has been delayed, so I have time to kill. Given that, I thought I’d blog about... Read more →

Airbus Airspace Cabin Vision 2030

Autodesk got its start when we democratized CAD technology by making it available on personal computers that were much less expensive than special-purpose workstations so that small mom and pop architect shops could graduate from using their drafting tables. We... Read more →

Infographic: The Future of Making

Due to this blog post's graphic nature, viewer discretion is advised. More, better, less. Never let them rest, until your more is better, and your better impacts less. I have posted several blog articles about the future of making and... Read more →

Fear not: Autodesk stays Abreast of the Environment and Technology

At Autodesk, our team focuses on strategic foresight. Strategic foresight is a practice of looking systematically at the future, understanding fragmented indicators that suggest possible futures, and developing a point of view about how to respond. We use imagination to... Read more →

techjury: Global IT Economics Infographic

When Autodesk was exclusively a desktop software provider, we had a fixed cost of goods associated with our offerings. It was basically a set of CDs or DVDs, a printed user manual, and some packaging. Now that we also offer... Read more →

Registration for Autodesk University in Las Vegas is Open

Autodesk University is your chance to take classes in using Autodesk software. It's also your chance to get insight as to where we think the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction and Product Design and Manufacturing industries are headed. There's also a... Read more →

Book Review: Non-Bullshit Innovation by David Rowan

David Rowan was the founding editor-in-chief of WIRED Magazine's UK edition and technology columnist of The Times, GQ, Condé Nast Traveler, and Sunday Times. David travels the globe to meet crazy-driven startup entrepreneurs who are reinventing industries through unconventional means.... Read more →

Fear Not: Autodesk has Your Back regarding Shifting Paradigms and Advancing Technology

At Autodesk, our team focuses on strategic foresight. Strategic foresight is a practice of looking systematically at the future, understanding fragmented indicators that suggest possible futures, and developing a point of view about how to respond. We use imagination to... Read more →

Alameda Resident Helps Buy 200 Laptops for Under-served High School Students

Travis Heppe, an Alameda, California resident and Google software engineer, recently did some research on participation among minorities in computer science. What he found was shocking. Although 90% of parents want their kids to learn computer science, only 14% of... Read more →

A Past Present Future Map can help identify a Company's Trajectory when Problem-Solving

Autodesk got its start when we democratized CAD technology by making it available on personal computers that were much less expensive than special-purpose workstations so that small mom and pop architect shops could graduate from using their drafting tables. We... Read more →

Ithaca Software was acquired by Autodesk 26 years ago today

Logo design by Anh Look It was 26 years ago today that Ithaca Software was acquired by Autodesk. Autodesk People and Places provided me with the list of employees on that fateful day. Patricia Abbott Carl Bass Milton Capsimalis Bob... Read more →

I Will Continue to Tip My Servers via Credit Card instead of Cash

Though I have Paypal and Venmo accounts, I mostly use a credit card for convenience. I took my wife and mother-in-law out to dinner last night. I charged the dinner, and as I was signing the credit card receipt, my... Read more →

New Landscaping from Cut Above Landscaping Adds Beauty to Our Home in Cypress, Texas

"Gardens are the result of a collaboration between art and nature." — Penelope Hobhouse Our Lennar home in Cypress, Texas came with landscaping in the front and backyards; however, when you dig a hole for a pool in the backyard,... Read more →

Fear not: Autodesk is paying attention to the Future of Work, Artificial Intelligence, and Machine Learning

At Autodesk, our team focuses on strategic foresight. Strategic foresight is a practice of looking systematically at the future, understanding fragmented indicators that suggest possible futures, and developing a point of view about how to respond. We use imagination to... Read more →

How are BIM 360, Assemble Systems, BuildingConnected, and PlanGrid related?

Autodesk started out as a design company. Now our focus is on design and make. For product design, that includes manufacturing. For media and entertainment, that includes movie, film, tv, and game production. For architecture and engineering, that includes construction... Read more →

Wooden Shutters provide Beauty and Improved Functionality

It's Friday, so let's talk about something besides Autodesk technology. My wife and I recently purchased a Lennar NextGen home in Cypress, Texas that includes an in-law unit. We are happy to have my mother-in-law living with us. Lennar homes... Read more →

Autodesk: Sustainability is in our Blood

"Sometimes I feel like giving up But I just can't It isn't in my blood" — "In My Blood," Shawn Mendes Autodesk is committed to helping designers and engineers create a future where we all live well and within the... Read more →

Fear not: Autodesk is paying attention to Climate Change, the end of Globalization, and the Future of Work

At Autodesk, our team focuses on strategic foresight. Strategic foresight is a practice of looking systematically at the future, understanding fragmented indicators that suggest possible futures, and developing a point of view about how to respond. We use imagination to... Read more →

Autodesk intern Courtney Yu's Cheat Sheet for Autodesk Products by Industry

Autodesk serves three industries: Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) Product Design and Manufacturing (PD&M) Media and Entertainment (M&E) More and more, we find that these industries are converging: Autodesk customers who make buildings (AEC) are starting to behave more like... Read more →

A Bold Proposal: Cost Analysis of Solar Panels for My Home in Cypress, Texas

We added solar panels to our Lennar smart home in Cypress, Texas. The smart home allows me to conduct an energy analysis using three reports: Our smart home includes Honeywell Lyric thermostats. These thermostats generate monthly reports that let us... Read more →

A Value Proposition Canvas can help identify How You Serve Customer Needs when Problem-Solving

Autodesk got its start when we democratized CAD technology by making it available on personal computers that were much less expensive than special-purpose workstations so that small mom and pop architect shops could graduate from using their drafting tables. We... Read more →

Pouring Wine from a Decanter: Let's Get to the Bottom of This

It's Friday, so let's talk about something besides Autodesk Technology. I am a wine drinker and, based on the type of wine, sometimes use a decanter. I have even blogged about using metal beads to clean my decanter. I am... Read more →

Autodesk intern Courtney Yu's Updated Cheat Sheet for Autodesk Products

As I mentioned in a previous blog post, our team has two interns for the summer. We wanted to give them an overview of Autodesk products (and there are many). Although we could have sent them to the list of... Read more →

A STEEP Map can help Frame the Context for a Problem-Solving Session

Autodesk got its start when we democratized CAD technology by making it available on personal computers that were much less expensive than special-purpose workstations so that small mom and pop architect shops could graduate from using their drafting tables. We... Read more →

Happy Independence Day - July 4 - from Autodesk

Q: What did one flag say to the other flag? A: Nothing. It just waved. Today is July 4 — Independence day — recognition of the day that the Continental Congress formally adopted the Declaration of Independence that had been... Read more →