Project Geppetto Updated in Autodesk Labs

image from Autodesk Labs

Autodesk Labs has released an update for their free Technology Preview Project Geppetto.  Project Geppetto is an ongoing research project from Autodesk.  Its purpose is to make it easy for users to add large amounts of people (or crowds) to your 3ds Max scenes.

Project Geppetto gives you tools to create realistic “people” motion, large amounts of humans roaming your design scene, and provides a framework for controlling and creating a scene with thousands of virtual people.

This latest update includes:

• Support for Autodesk 3ds Max 2013 and Autodesk 3ds Max Design 2013
• Contains the Evolver technology
• It extends the technology preview period through January 15, 2013

Go to Autodesk Labs and check out the preview.
http://labs.autodesk.com/utilities/geppetto/

Read more about what it does and how to do it.  Autodesk is looking for guidance from the users on this project.  If you like this tool or think that you might like this tool try it out.  Get involved.  Tell Autodesk what you think, what you like, what you don’t like and what you want.

Here is a video on Project Geppetto:
http://youtu.be/NnH7F2eOLb8

Project Artoo for AutoCAD Map 3D Free Technology Preview in Autodesk Labs

Autodesk Labs has released their latest Technology Preview code named “Project Artoo.”  (Don’t tell G.L. because he may come after them for licensing fees!)  Project Artoo is the next Labs project from Autodesk.  It is an AutoCAD® Map 3D 2013 software tool that lets users “clean up” their geospatial data.  Its purpose is to produce higher quality files by improving accuracy.  The Preview will last until February 1, 2013.

Inventor Fusion coming to Mac First Quarter 2012

Autodesk’s Inventor Fusion is coming to Apple’s Mac computer. Not surprised. Autodesk has been slowly recreating some of their most popular design programs to be used on the Mac. And I do mean recreate. Like it or not Autodesk is going Mac. Regardless of what it means for Windows users, Autodesk is doing things the right way. Starting with AutoCAD for Mac, then AutoCAD LT for Mac and then with Inventor Fusion for Mac, Autodesk started over. They did not create a port to Mac from Windows. They reused what code they could but made Inventor Fusion (and the others) a native Mac program. That’s good. Now I wish they would rewrite the Windows versions!

AutoCAD Isometrics WS Technology Preview Now Available

Autodesk Labs is at it again!!  Today they released yet another Labs Technology Preview called AutoCAD Isometrics WS.

This Technology Preview is a cloud based service for creating, sharing, storing and viewing isometric drawings. It has the ability to design and collaborate across desktop, web, and mobile devices with full DWG file type compatibility.  There is a catch, you need a PCF file to upload.  A PCF file can be created from Autodesk Inventor, AutoCAD Plant 3D and other 3d parry applications.  Upload the file and let the cloud do the processing for you.  That's the idea anyway.

To get started, go to the AutoCAD Isometrics WS login page.  Sign in (or sign up then sign in) and get started. Once in the process is quite simple.  Select your PCF file to upload, establish your Isometric styles, and create.  Once complete you will have a DWG file to play with.  Your files can be saved in Autodesk Cloud or you can download them.

AutoCAD Isometrics WS is a simple tool to use that can save you much time and effort.  Since it's in the cloud it will save you on resources and effort.  If you don't have access to a PCF file, Labs will supply you with one to try it out.  Ursula Sadiq has put together a video preview for you to look at.

Autodesk Labs is looking for feedback on this preview.  Try it out, kick the tires and let them know what you think.  If it's garbage let them know.  If's it fantastic, let them know.  Just follow the feedback links from the labs.

Autodesk Labs Role - Guest Post by Scott Sheppard

Autodesk Labs Program Manager, Scott Sheppard, is our guest Blogger today.  he talks to us about Autodesk Lab's role at Autodesk, as well as some of it's history.

Autodesk Labs got its start with Shaan Hurley. Shaan was working on our Beta program back then and wished he could involve users earlier. We love our beta programs. We manage them on http://beta.autodesk.com Participants sign up, test the software, and provide feedback under a Non-Disclosure Agreement. Though from the customer perspective this is early in the release process, it’s actually closer to the end of the process in software development terms. So although beta testers may have great ideas like “Why don’t you redo this whole thing this way?”, there really isn’t time to start over from scratch. The primary emphasis of many beta programs is to learn if the software works or not. Our QA teams have already put the release through its paces, but there’s no substitute for having customers try it with their own data to ensure that something is ready to ship.

Autodesk Labs was born to involve the customer earlier in the process – where there is actually enough time to act on a suggestion like “Why don’t you redo this whole thing this way?” We are careful to call what we put on Labs “technology previews” instead of alphas or betas, because we want to ensure that there are no misconceptions about something becoming a product or making it into an existing product. We make technology previews available on Labs so people can help shape their future. Some die a quick death. For example, users were not so happy with our attempt at visual search where users could locate parts by drawing crude shapes. Others take a while to perfect but go on to greatness. Autodesk Inventor LT was on Labs for 2 years before becoming a product. Autodesk Impression was one of the first technologies to graduate from Labs. It is now a feature of AutoCAD.

As an organization within Autodesk, we have 2 roles.

1.  Our Labs team looks at industry trends and creates prototypes that attempt to turn the possible into the practical. Way back before the iPhone, we instrumented a copy of Autodesk Design Review to run on our Perceptive Pixel Multi-touch Wall. We learned a great deal about the gestures that would be appropriate for working with CAD data without a mouse or keyboard. Even further back than that, we created Project Freewheel to see if it were really possible to view 3D (not 2D, 2D was easy) CAD data on the web using just a browser. We learned a great deal about high-end graphics cards that were not common in cloud computing servers like those from Amazon EC2.

2.  Our second role is to be a service organization to the rest of Autodesk. We get technologies from various departments and help make them available via the Autodesk Labs site. Most of the items you find on Labs came from somewhere else within the company. The Labs team has worked on Project Freewheel, Project Draw, Project Showroom, ShareNow, and Project Twitch, but everything else is from another part of the company. We are happy to play this role as we encourage other parts of the company to develop their technologies by involving the customer early in the process. We also help with the mechanics of it by creating web pages, email aliases, discussion forums, etc. We also use social media (e.g. blogs, Facebook, Twitter) to get the word out. We produce monthly reports, that I loving call TPS reports in reference to Office Space, that summarize feedback and include site visitor and download statistics.

Thanks Scott for being our guest blogger today and for all of the great work that Autodesk Labs puts out.

Check out the new design tool from Autodesk, AutoCAD Freestyle. www.autodesk.com/autocadfreestyle

Autodesk Labs Graduates Project Cooper-Starts sales of AutoCAD Freestyle

When Project Cooper was placed on the Autodesk Labs site I was impressed.  It has gone through several tests, trials, and reviews since it first appeared.  Over the life of this Labs Project it has seen several versions and a name change.  Project Cooper is now called AutoCAD Freestyle.  And today it is released as an official product of Autodesk.

Autodesk Labs Introduces Project Snap

Autodesk Labs is one of my favorite places to go.  If you have never been there, or it’s been a long time, then go back.  There are many projects there to take a look at.

The most recently added project is Project Snap.  According to the Labs website, Project Snap is a “unified browse and search platform” for Autodesk products.  Right now it is only working for AutoCAD 2010 and AutoCAD 2011.  They have plans to eventually extend it Revit and Inventor.  It might work on AutoCAD Verticals (Like Map, and Mechanical) but the site doesn’t say.  I’ve downloaded it and will be trying it out.

Autodesk Project Dragonfly

Autodesk Labs contains a plethora of tools. Autodesk uses the Labs site to try out new things. Several tools have come out of it, Like Impression, Inventor LT, Freewheel, and more. I'm a big fan of the Labs site and I've posted about it often. Well, here I go again. Autodesk Labs has added Project Dragonfly. Dragonfly is a sort of hybrid of Project Draw and Project Showroom. Well, maybe not really, but you can see it from a certain point of view.

Showroom is more of a drag and drop application that features specific design materials and hardware for a room. Project Draw is a generic 2D drawing application. Dragonfly focuses on 2D and 3D architectural design. It has drag and drop "blocks" of furniture, windows, doors, wall types, floor types, appliances, electronic equipment, and, well much more.

Dragonfly is a tool that enables you to quickly produce a 2D or 3D model of a building and its furniture. It is drawn to scale, so it has a degree of accuracy. It also has a level of quickness that is appealing. Changes can be made very quickly (just drag and drop), the design can be e-mailed, saved, and printed. Have an idea for a kitchen? "Sketch" it up in Dragonfly and email it to your client or contractor.

Dragonfly can give you a 2D and a 3D view. you can also edit the model in either form. Try it out, see what it has to offer, and give Autodesk some feedback. The Labs site is a sort of sandbox where Autodesk and its customers can get together and try things out. This is a good chance to provide information to Autodesk so that they can provide software that better suits your needs.

Autodesk Labs - A Brief Tour in San Francisco

While I was at Autodesk’s office in San Francisco, I was fortunate enough to have been given a tour of many of Autodesk’s Labs projects. John Schmier, Autodesk Labs Engineer and Evangelist, was very happy to show off several of the Labs Projects. In this tour there were many examples of 3D printing. The ability to send a file to a 3D printer right out of AutoCAD was added to AutoCAD 2010. It processes and sends your model to a 3D printing service. You will receive your model in the mail after a few days time! With the cost of 3D printers around $30,000 apiece (that price various greatly depending on what it does, etc.), it can very difficult for firms to have this ability in house.

Here are some photos of what Autodesk had on display.


If you went to Autodesk University 2008 you will probably recognize the motorcycle in the photos. Every part was created via 3D printing technology.

Many of you might recognize the Touch Screen from AU. It is a giant screen that has touch interface. Depending on which program you are running, you can use a certain amount of touch points to manipulate your files. This display had touch enabled version of Autodesk Design Review and Autodesk Mudbox. Using different combinations of touch points and movement you can navigate through a DWG file or you could render a 3D object in Mudbox. Autodesk is studying ways humans can interface with computers. The software is there, but making it so it can run on different hardware is evidently the issue.

Windows 7 is supposed to support touch technology, so we should be seeing more and more hardware and software available with touch interface technology. HP also has hardware out that can handle up to four touch points, but Autodesk’s software has been developed to work with eight to ten. The software and the hardware are still in need of coming together before this technology type becomes more mainstream.

One of the other pieces of technology highlighted in my tour featured other ways of interfacing with the computer. Autodesk is looking for more ways to take everyday hardware that is relatively inexpensive and apply it to new ways for humans to interface with computers. In this example, Autodesk took a remote control from a Nintendo Wii (download the driver here) and was navigating through a Design Review file. Another device was nothing more than a cardboard cube. A basic web cam was looking at the device and could recognize which side was up! It was using a form of Augmented Reality. To turn the drawing object on the computer screen so that the back was displayed, rotate the cube in your hand until the back was showing. It works just like the View Cube in AutoCAD and Design Review, but it is a physical object that a person can hold in his or her hands. It can make presenting a drawing more simple for those that are not as familiar with the display controls inside Autodesk products.

Using a simple web cam, the Labs had a display that can easily be applied to spatial planning. This was also using Augmented Reality (click the link to see a YouTube video of this tech being demonstrated.) There was a computer, large screen and a web cam that was viewing a flat display on a table in front of the screen. The display was flat and had tiles on it. Each tile had a picture of a building, parking layout, or other equipment or buildings. The tiles on the display mat were read by the web cam and recognized to represent 3D models on the screen. The software running could then analyze the data shown and conduct process like light studies or airflow around the buildings. This tool is meant to aid spatial planners of all sorts to be able to look at objects and see how they interact with each other. City Planners and warehouse designers could quickly throw down some tiles and see where they can fit, how they affect the surrounding area, and more.

The last bit of technology shown that I want to talk about was the Boom Chameleon. The Labs department has been displaying this bit of tech for some time now and I was glad to get a chance to see it in person. There are many different applications that can take advantage of this device. The Boom Chameleon demonstrates how car manufacturers can save millions of dollars working on prototypes for new car designs. The Boom on display takes a 3D model of a car (in this case, but it could be anything) and allows the user to walk around it, inspecting it in real time and size. The device consists of a platform with a tower and boom. There is a screen at the end of the boom that can be lifted, lowered, and spun to simulate a person looking at a real car. Where you move the boom and screen will determine where you are looking. It replicates a physical car. Evidently it take about a million dollars for a car company to create a full scale model of a new car. With the technology of the Boom Chameleon, they no longer have to create as many real models. They can conduct inspections of the new design and get a good feel of how the car will look before it exists. It is estimated that this technology could reduce the amount of models created by 50%.

This technology can also be applied to building inspections and constructions. Using the Chameleon and BIM, users can take the boom out to an existing building, move it around a room and "see" what is inside the walls, floor and ceiling before they start punching holes and destroying whats inside. Very useful, as long as the data is correct!

There was a lot of exciting technology on display by Autodesk Labs at the San Francisco office and I greatly appreciated John’s tour. If you haven't, visit Autodesk Labs and Scott Sheppard's Blog. You may be surprised by what they have available. Oh, and here is a link from Scott's blog about the event I attended.

Happy CADDING.