Live from Autodesk University 2010

Alright, so here we are at Autodesk University. I'm at my second session this morning; I can't tell you about the first one, since it was under NDA [non-disclosure agreement].

The wireless Interenet at AU is really uneven, screwing up a cloud demo this morning.

DCS

This was the second year for the Design Computation Symposium at AU -- the second year, because that's how long it's been since Robert Aish moved from Bentley Systems to Autodesk. You might be aware that Bentley used to have the same sort of events when Mr Aish was still with them. (For all I know, BS might still have them, but I wouldn't know, because of Bentley's boycott against me. Honest! I had nothing to do with Mr Aish no longer being a colleague.)

DesignScript is a new programming language for AutoCAD that will allow formulas to generate designs and multiple iterations of varying designs. A few years ago we saw a demo that created variations on building shell designs in Inventor, but I don't think that's gone anywhere. DesignScript will perform associative, parametric, and computational modeling.

This year's DCS theme is "Digital Craftsmanship," with Carl Bass being the keynote speaker, talking about "making stuff." Since he likes to make stuff (he showed us photos of his baseball bats, a child's rocketship, and a garden bench) he has a personal interest in linking handmade craftsmanship with modern CAD/CAM software and machines. I think he question he is addressing was, "How can we give a hand-crafted elegance to machine-produced products?"

I wish my daughter were hear to hear the presentation by Mr Bass, because his history of craftsmanship is fascinating. (She is in third-year fine arts at TWU.) For exampel, some designers got disgusted with the perfection of craftsmanship that they would deliberately damage the final product, or make it poorly. The "IKEA hack" is a worldwide movement that takes Ikea furniture and hacks it with wood and other parts from other sources -- deliberating destroying what the Ikea designers meant.

Does there need to be risk in designs, he asks. I think so. For instance, I think cars are becoming too safe, and so  drivers are no longer aware that driving a car is inherently dangerous.

Mr Bass's last topic is on scale: managing complexity. He shows a photo of an old door key next to an electronic car key from Mercedes. He could make the first one in his shop; he has no idea how to make the second. I see, he point is that tools [ie, software that Autodesk sells] are needed to handle design complexity. He thinks we have treated computing as a scarce resource, which is the wrong way to treat it. (I think today's Android cell phones make computing pervasive.)

He thinks we are missing the point with cloud computing. Cost: parking in San Francisco is $8 an hour and going up; cloud computing is 50 cents an hour, and going down. We should think of cloud computing as infinitite computing.

Back to ADN

I've walked back to the ADN seminar to hear Andrew Agnost talk about some future technology that will "appear sooner than you expect." I am finding that this new stuff is pretty interesting to me. "This will build up over time," says Mr Agnost,who now has a new title: vp of suites, web services, and subscriptions. The fact that he is in charge of these three areas must mean that they are linked.

Now we are into Q&As from third-party developers. Actually, many of the developers here are in-house ones, who customize AutoCAD and other Adsk software for their firms. Sitting behind me are two from Boeing, who happen to also read upFront.eZine.

Media Day

Now I gotta drop down one floor in this convention center to take in the Media Day that Autodesk has for us CAD journalists. Lunch, speeches, one-on-one interviews, and an event at the House of Blues in the evening. Later tonight, Cengage Delmar is hosting dinner at the StripSteak restaurant for its authors. My count for today:

• Breakfast = 0
• Lunch = 1
• Supper = 2

...more to come.

[Disclosure: Autodesk provided me with airfare, hotel, corporate gifts, and meals.]

Comments

[Dave Ault]

You have to love the sheer brass of these cloudies. "No we are not going to tell you about costs" followed by "sorry, the internet provider is having problems so our demo will rescheduled" Service that is priceless! ;-}