Autodesk to purchase Socialcam

Autodesk announced today that it has signed an agreement to purchase Socialcam for approximately $60 million (USD).
Socialcam is a mobile app that allows for video capture, editing and sharing.  The deal is set to close in Autodesk’s third quarter of fiscal 2013 which ends on October 31, 2012.
http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20120717005592/en/Autodesk-Signs-Agreement-Acquire-Socialcam

Socialcam is a small business (only 4 employees) that spun off of Justin.tv the prior year.  It has been able to receive funding and is now being purchased by Autodesk.

http://techcrunch.com/2012/04/30/socialcam-angel-funding-investors/

Why would Autodesk want a mobile app that creates and edits videos? Why did they purchase Pixlr? For the same reasons they are making several mobile app versions of their own software and giving them all away for free.  This is the consumerification of Autodesk.  Autodesk has been producing high end software that, let’s face it, is very expensive.  The average person can’t afford to purchase AutoCAD, let alone one of their design suites.  Even if they could, why would they?  Consumers make up a very large audience that Autodesk wasn’t reaching.  Now Autodesk is making an effort to reach out to consumers.  They have saturated the professional design market, the SFx market, and now they want the consumer market.  Besides, Socialcam can always be marketed to professionals as well.  How useful would it be to go to the job site, record an inspection video, edit it there and send it back to the client, office, approving agency, etc.?  Very.

I’m interested in seeing how Autodesk uses this soon to be acquisition.

Can't find the right file? Fix your filing system

Image credit:qwasyx / 123RF Stock Photo 

It hurts me to see people in an engineering office (or any office) fumble around in a hurried bustle trying to find a drawing(s) for a very important client meeting while freaking out!  Seriously…I want to cry.  I hurt from the inside.  You know that scene in Star Wars, A New Hope, when Obi-Wan Kenobi is training Luke Skywalker on route to Alderaan via the Millennium Falcon?  You know…when Obi-Wan is suddenly faint, is forced to sit down under the weight of death caused by the sudden destruction of an entire planet and says, “as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced” ?  That’s how I feel when I see or hear this kind of story.

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

Archive an original AutoCAD file after you have made changes to it.

I forgot to make a copy of this AutoCAD file before I started to change it.  OOPS!  It happens.  So what can you do?  First of all, if you are making a major change to an existing AutoCAD file it is a good idea to make a copy (an historical archive) of the file before you change it.  That way you have an electronic copy of what you submitted that you can go back to.  There are many reasons why you may need to revisit an old design or an older version of a drawing.  Minor changes may not require an archive, but what constitutes a minor change?

CAD-a-Blog – June 2012 Posts you may have missed but shouldn’t have!

Here are links to some posts from the month of June 2012 that you might have missed.

ACAD/Medre.A Malware – An AutoCAD Based Virus that may be stealing your files and email contacts!

Autodesk Releases ForceEffect for Android

TechSmith Releases Camtasia Studio 8

Autodesk Announces New Cloud Service – Autodesk BIM 360

3Dconnexion Releases Update to 3DxWare 10 Beta Software


3Dconnexion Announces Official Certification for 3Dconnexion 3D mouse support in Autodesk Inventor 2013

3D Print a Burrito with Burrit0bot! (I’m not kidding)

HP Announces new HP Z220 Workstations and EliteBook Mobile Workstations

Autodesk’s Acquisition of Vela Systems Means Nothing

Autodesk releases Hotfix for Autodesk 360 Sync Error



For all of the posts from June 2012 for CAD-a-Blog.