Autodesk Blogs - Aggregated Content

Delicate Arch in Your Hand as a 3D Print

2012-02-25T12:03:08-08:00

Last Spring two FARO employees Jeff Squibbs and Matthew Daly and myself took a FARO Focus3D laser on a hike up to Delicate Arch located just outside Moab Utah in Arches National Park. The goal was to capture the world famous natural sandstone landmark in an accurate 3D point cloud using a laser scanner.

Why capture the Delicate Arch in 3D, because we can. Capturing the Arch is not only fun, but demonstrates there are no limits to the practical use of Reality Capture techniques and applications to document existing objects in 3D.

From my blog post prior to the adventure To Capture Delicate Arch in 3D

In this photo you can see the scale of Delicate Arch as many people are climbing around it. The arch is about 65 feet (20 meters) tall and sits on the edge of a slope that turns to a cliff a bit further down.

Sandstone arches like Delicate Arch are fragile structures made up of layers of Entrada Sandstone and by their very nature are changing all the time with weather and erosion which not only creates them but results in their demise over time. Just a couple years ago nearby Wall Arch lost its battle with gravity and the elements and was reduced to a pile of sandstone boulders.

Going from analog to a digital - then down to a four inch plastic arch.

The Team from left to right
Matthew Daly of FARO, Jeff Squibbs of FARO, and me Shaan Hurley of Autodesk.

We received the written permission of the National Park Service before even considering this project so as not impacting the location or visitors. With the FOCUS 3D laser scanning unit being so small and portable were easily able to capture several scans without impacting any of the other visitors to the site that day. We did get several people inquiring “what kind of cool new camera is that.”

In order to capture the entire arch we had to climb like all over the visible sight lines which resulted in capturing over 95% of all surfaces. The only surface not able to be completely captured by laser was the top which was flat except a small bush growing on it.

For the areas we could not scan using the laser, I was able to capture photos of the surfaces and generate 3D mesh for the missing surfaces using Autodesk 123D Catch which takes photos captured with a digital camera and converts them to a 3D model.

The 3D Model created from photos using Autodesk 123D Catch

The 123D Catch model imported into 3ds Max

Using both the data from the laser scanner captured point clouds and some surface mesh from 123D Catch we re-constructed an accurate 3D digital model of Delicate Arch.

Here are some images of the point cloud captured. It is comprised of billions of points in 3D x,y,z space. We scanned much of the bowl formation where the arch is.

You can see closer detail of the point cloud here with intensity values coloring it red-orange.

Getting the point cloud from a laser to a surface watertight meshed model is no easy feat especially with an organic structure as faceted as the sandstone arch and currently requires a great deal of work and various software. Hopefully in the future this becomes an easy process.

Here is the meshed model in 3ds Max created from the point cloud data. This is one highly detailed and accurate model.

Using a consumer 3D printer a MakerBot I decided to take this huge digital model and reduce it to a small 4” model which could be printed in 3D as a plastic replica of the original.

So I sent the STL of Delicate Arch to my MakerBot and in 90 minutes had my Delicate Arch in red ABS plastic which I can proudly place on my desk or show to people explaining the story taking this huge natural landmark and reducing it to the scale that I can carry in my hand. It is captured forever in time while the original continues to shift and change but hopefully lasts well into the future for everyone to enjoy. I will be making available the STL file of the scaled down Delicate Arch for others to 3D print their own. I am not including the monster detail model or point clouds just the STL file for the small 4 inch arch. The location of the STL model will most likely be in the Thingiverse library.

Below is the resulting four inch 3D print in red ABS plastic, the same materials Legos are made of.

I can’t wait to drop some miniature arches and the point cloud data set off to the National Park Service. They will be surprised as most every other Delicate Arch model in existence was based on an artist sculpture, not capturing the real geometry digitally. I am also giving many of these small arches to others including all those involved such as FARO’s Jeff and Matt who were key in this experiment in reality capture.

You may be wondering “but I don’t have a laser but would like to capture existing objects in 3D and print them as well.” That is not a problem as you too can do this using Autodesk 123D Catch then working on the mesh in the free Autodesk MeshMixer then export a STL file for your 3D printer or use an online 3D print service like Shapeways where you could also print on several other materials.

Cheers,
Shaan

It's Alive in the Lab: New Banner and Expanded Focus

2012-02-25T08:18:05-08:00

OLD:

NEW:

As of February 1, 2012, Autodesk Labs (technical evangelism) reports into the Office of the CTO - Jeff Kowalski. Shaan Hurley and I report to Jon Pittman, VP of Corporate Strategy and Engagement. Shaan and I continue to do those things we do as always. Ben Cochran (Autodesk Labs development) reports to Gord Kurtenbach of Autodesk Research which is also part of the Office of the CTO. Ben's team still works on those Labsy projects as always. (VP Brian Mathews is focusing on Reality Capture, which includes point cloud processing and photogrammetry, as part of the Information Modeling & Platform Products division.)

With these organizational changes in mind, in addition to covering the free technology previews available on the Autodesk Labs site, this blog will continue to cover the exhibits in the Autodesk Gallery as well as expand to cover other areas of the Office of the CTO such as Autodesk Research and TED. For example, I am anxious to learn more about Project Dasher. I created a new banner image for my blog.

123D Catch Beta Customer Quotes

2012-02-24T05:43:49-08:00

On Tuesday I mentioned that we are still very excited that Project Photofly has graduated from Autodesk Labs to become 123D Catch Beta. 123D Beta, 123D Catch Beta, and 123D Make are a set of tools geared towards creative nonprofessional people who want to make things. You can learn more about them at:

123D Application Site

I included a sample of some of the Press Coverage from January. Some customer comments from January include:

"Hi! I'm ... writing a research paper on 3D modeling of ancient architectural monuments. Hoping to write a section about Autodesk 123D as it is very effective tool for converting 2D photos to 3D. Hope you can help on this paper."
"...it is a very impressive service even with the network troubles."
"[The 123D Catch Servers are up.] Fantastic. Thank you for the quick reassurance!"
"With the aforementioned science center demo day coming up next week, I'm very happy to report that catch is working incredibly well with our 6 camera face scan rig!"

Even after its graduation, the feedback continues to pour in. We still read everything we receive.

Quotations are alive in the lab.

Sphere packing in AutoCAD: filling an arbitrary solid using .NET

2012-02-22T08:03:28-08:00

As we’re nearing the end of this series, it seems a good time to do a quick recap of where we’ve been with the posts leading up to this point. Here goes… An interesting challenge: generating variable density fill patterns...

AutoCAD WS 1.4 includes GPS support

2012-02-23T16:34:30-08:00

AutoCAD WS is a cloud application that allows you to view, edit, and share drawings through a web browser or a mobile device including iOS and Android phones and tablets.

The latest version AutoCAD WS 1.4 supports GPS. It also supports viewing of 3D drawings and remote plotting using any web-connected HP ePrinter.

AutoCAD 2013 is approaching the Finish Line

2012-02-23T09:21:16-08:00

It's always so exciting when the next release of AutoCAD arrives - I feel like a kid at Christmas as I unwrap all the new shiny features. I thought I'd share a general overview of some of the new features you'll be seeing in AutoCAD 2013. More to come of course!

Command Line:
You Command Line fans will love the new modern enhancements to the UI. Now you can control the color and transparency of the command line. Float the undocked command line (which defaults to a single row) above the AutoCAD drawing window. You'll notice that the semi-transparent prompt history (displays up to 50 lines) doesn’t affect the drawing area.

Array Enhancements:
AutoCAD 2012 really knocked it out of the park with the new Associative Arrays. AutoCAD 2013 will take them a bit further by showing objects in a pattern faster, and with more handy grips.

Hatching:
The Hatch Editor ribbon tab now allows you to select more than one hatch object at a time.

In-Canvas Property Preview
Dynamical check out object properties as you select them (including transparency)! Get the right property value every time!

Point Clouds
Point Clouds can now be easily attached and managed from the External Reference Manager. The Attach Point Cloud dialog box now provides a preview and more detailed information.

A new bounding box appears when you select a point cloud (making it easier to visualize its position in 3D space). The new Point Cloud ribbon tab also appears with all the necessary Point Cloud tools.

If intensity data is included, you can use the analysis tools to view point intensity with different color schemes.
(And now you can clip a point cloud!)

PressPull
Now you can press/pull multiple objects at one time! You can also select 2D and 3D curves (not just inside a bounded area).

Surface Curve Extraction

Use the new Extract Isolines tool (Surface ribbon tab) to quickly extract isoline curves from an existing surface or face of a solid.

You can change the direction of the isolines, select a chain or draw a spline on the curved surface.

Import Inventor Files

In AutoCAD 2013 you can import Inventor models (hoorah!)

Model Documentation
Be far, my favorite feature in AutoCAD 2012 was the new Model Documentation tools. Thankfully, AutoCAD 2013 adds in Detail Views and Section Views!

You can also select the objects you want to include in your model documentation (no longer limited to ALL the objects).

Associative Annotations
Now the dimensions added to the drawing views (with the model documentation tools) are associative and smart! If you change the design - these annotations do a much better job of updating (love this!).

Strike-through Text
Now available for Mtext, Mleaders, Dimensions and Tables!

Bring Leaders to the Front
Leaders are now included with the TextToFront tool

Wipeouts display but don't Plot
With the new WIPEOUTFRAME system variable.

Reverse Polyline Widths
Use the new PLINEREVERSEWIDTHS setvar when using the REVERSE tool to ensure the results you want.

Offset Preview
Hooray for a Preview of your offset results!

Funding the UK National Infrastructure Plan

2012-02-23T10:41:55-08:00

At the Global Infrastructure Leadership Forum, Geoffrey Spence, who heads up Infrastructure UK, the Treasury body that oversees the UK’s infrastructure plan, gave an overview of the National Infrastructure Plan of the UK. The fact that Geofffrey Spence was a personal economic adviser to Chancellor Alistair Darling during the last banking crisis, gives some indication of how seiously the UK Government is treating infrastructure.

In 2011 the Government released its National Infrastructure Plan, which outlines a plan to invest about £250 billion in the next five yrs and £ 400 billion in the 10 yrs on infrastructure including high speed rail, energy (especially nuclear and wind), aviation, water and wastewater, roads and highways, and high speed broadband. This is a considerably higher spend than in the past and signals a change in focus from social infrastructure such as hospitals and government facilities to economic infrastructure. Perhaps the most revolutionary aspect of this plan is the intention that 70% of the funding will come from the private sector.

The Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) has said that it supports the vision as expressed in the Plan and that it believes that it would enable the UK to compete in the global economy. It specifically recommended that HM Government assign a senior minister with responsibility for monitoring performance against Plan, create a simple set of performance measures for infrastructure that are independently assessed, and develop a two year pipeline of infrastructure projects to help the private sector to improve efficiency. The ICE also suggested ways to asist the Government to attract private investment.

Geoffrey Spense said that the Government wants full transparency for the infrastructure effort, so that business will know where they should focus its efforts over the next ten years. It intends to maintain an open pipeline of projects for the next several years so that, for example, companies specializing in tunneling will be able to see for all tunneling projects in one place, whether they are for rail, sewers, or nuclear power plants. He said that there is a multi-ministry subcommittee that meets regularly to identify where blockages are occurring between ministries and to work colaboratively to streamline infrastructure projects where multiple ministries are involved.

The critical challenge in realizing the Plan is reducing the financial burden on government. The UK Government recognizes that traditional funding mechanisms such as bonds, traditional public-private partnerships (PPP), and long term loans from banks are not longer viable. As a first step the Government is planning to reform PPP policy, and has just completed a public consultation on this.

The second problem is that banks are charging unprecedented rates, 3-4% over Treasury rates, and it is hard to find long term loans longer than seven years. The Government is looking at how best attract the banks and at ways of encouraging banks to take on some of the risk in the early stages of projects. The Government is also looking at different models for low cost, long term financing. For example, in Canada pension funds have been a source of long term infrastructure funding. Another option is off-shore investors such as China.

AutoCAD 2013 News

2012-02-23T12:37:41-08:00

You will now start hearing more about the impending AutoCAD 2013 release. Autodesk PR has given the OK to discuss the release publicly now.

I have been testing AutoCAD 2013 (codename Jaws) for awhile now now and have some of my favorite new enhancements which I will describe in future posts.

Lynn Allen has stared with a brief overview of a few of the AutoCAD 2013 features:
AutoCAD 2013 is approaching the Finish Line

Yes, in the not too distant future the 27th release of AutoCAD will be available to everyone.

Cheers,
Shaan

Inventor 3D Annotation Feedback Results

2012-02-23T04:00:00-08:00

When you download a technology preview, we have you log into the Autodesk Labs community first. This way we can get a list of who has downloaded what. We don't use the download lists very often, but every once in a while we reach out to users and get their feedback. Recently Product Designer, Joseph Burkel, asked to be added to the labs.iv.3da@autodesk.com email distribution list, so he could read the feedback that comes in. I was happy to add him. Our email lists for each technology preview include Product Managers, Product Designers, Software Developers, QA Testers, Technical Writers, and Labs staff (Shaan Hurley, and me).

Given Joseph's request, I decided to take the opportunity to reach out to users using the download list. I asked them to confirm previous feedback that we had received and add any new wish list items for 3D annotation with Inventor. My email elicited 57 responses. Here is a sampling of requested features:

Support for annotation of Assemblies
Provide additional flexibility for text position, changing leader lines, changing which part/face is indicated, etc
Support Product & Manufacturing Information that is specified in ASME Y14.41 and ISO standards
Interoperate with the electronic review process of Autodesk Design Review, NavisWorks (DMU Review process), and Inventor Publisher
Ability to project all information on draft views for drawing creations
Check of consistency, like a wizard that indicates what is correct and what is not from a tolerancing point of view
Add dialog-box to overwrite the measurement-text with an own paraphrase
3DA automatically extract information about features, O/A size, and depths of features
Allow 3DA/PMI data be used to define base which face is down for manufacturing
Ability to set the extension lines to the intersection of 2 faces
Ability to migrate 3DA dimensions to Inventor drawing ISO views
Make the undo command behave as expected
3D annotations to be mapped to the proper locations on 2D views (like weld symbols)
Dimension text only shows the Value, also show the parameter name e.g., ‘Length’ for a table of values
Circular edge to linear edge does not work / cannot select this combination
Datum features cannot be repositioned, or positioned in a user defined manner
Datum identifier for holes should be able to show above hole on centerline or on extension line from face
Feature Tolerance frame crashes when selecting a datum letter with "Unhandled Exception... Input string was not in a correct format"
Dimension objects do not display very well and cannot be configured as aligned; dimension line does not break for text
Cannot configure dimensions to display trailing zeros
Retrieve the annotation information into the drawing Environment (IDW)
3D annotations (Dimensions and other) must save own values as variables (like dimension in sketches d0, d1, etc.)
3D annotations must have own folder in browser (like sketched symbols in drawing)
User must have possibility hide/show 3D annotations, selected group hide/show 3D annotations and hide/show all 3D annotations
3D annotations must work in part, sheet metal part, weld assembly, and assembly
User must have possibility retrieve 3D annotations in View in drawing manager (like Weld annotations in 3D can retrieve as annotation in drawing view)
Dimensions must have tolerance, limits (like dimension in drawing manager)
In 3DA must be all annotation functional from Drawing manager annotations: dimensions, surface textures, feature contril frame, datum, fits, weld annotations are present from early versions of Inventor
3D annotations survive the translation to CATIA file format (particularly V5 R18 and up)
Enable Snap points for dimension annotations
Ability to render a model/assembly and have the text visible in the rendered image
Ability to export an image complete with 3D annotation
Remove the requirement to activate 3D annotation and make it available at all times
Ability to change the font style and colour, together with witness line colours as desired whilst applying the 3-D annotation
GD and T support / tolerancing support
Allow label placement for possible 3D annotation in an add-on to AutoCAD
Make it possible to do only a dimension without Tolerance
Export to a 3D PDF
Exchange data via STEP and JT
Dimensions should be associative when model changes (refresh of dimensions when model changes)

Thanks to everyone who has downloaded the technology, and specifically those who have provided feedback. This is why we conduct technology previews in the first place. This will come in handy in the event the Inventor team wishes to revise the technology preview or graduate it to another form. If you would like to get in on the 3D annotation action:

// Learn more about 3D Annotation for Autodesk Inventor on Autodesk Labs

Enumeration is alive in the lab.

Cities leading in commercial real estate investment

2012-02-22T23:25:42-08:00

At the Global Infrastructure Leadership Forum, Rosemary Feenan of Jones Lang Lasalle made the point that most of the world's private investment in commercial real estate projects goes to a relatively small number of cities. Her list for 2010/2011 of the top 30 cities for direct commercial real estate investment for 2010-2011 and the total amount invested in billions is interesting.

London $43 billion
Tokyo $32
New York $27
Hong Kong $18
Paris $18
Singapore $15
Washington DC $13
Seoul $12
Toronto $10
Shanghai $10
Las Angeles $10
Beijing $8
San Francisco $8
Chicago $7
Taipei $7
Sydney $7
Stockholm $6
Boston $6
Moscow $6
Frankfurt $5
Melbourne $5
Berlin $5
Calgary $5
Rio de Janeiro $5
San Diego $5
Hamburg $4
Munich $4
Miami $4
Sao Paulo $4
Manchester $4

It is interesting that the top 10 includes Singapore and Toronto, both relatively small from a population perspective. According to a recent report, Toronto leads other cities in North America by a considerable margin in number of tall buildings under construction, most of which are residential.

Reducing cost of infrastructure by improving construction productivity

2012-02-23T08:57:04-08:00

At the Global Infrastructure Leadership Forum, a very interesting presentation was given by two consultants from McKinsey on the major trends in global infrastructure development and some suggestions of ways to address some of the challenges they have identified.

First of all they are anticipating a massive spend on infrastructure, something on the order of $3 - 7 trillion annually. The infrastructure spend in the developing countries market is just as large as in the developed countries market. But infrastructure spending growth is significantly higher in the developing countries market. In many countries there is a shortage of infrastructure funding from governments, which sets the stage for greater private investment. Complex regulations and politics together are slowing infrastructure development. For example, in the US it can take 12-20 years to build a new transmission line. There are significant impediments preventing private capital from playing a greater role in funding infrastructure. For example, several speakers expressed doubts about the future of private-public partnerships (PPP), suggesting that a new paradigm for private investment is required. McKinsey singled out poor construction productivity as an important factor in eroding returns on infrastructure and making infrastructure less attractive for private investment.

McKinsey says that construction productivity has stagnated or declined in many countries and gave historical construction productivity data for the European Union, Korea, Japan, and the U.S.

McKinsey suggested that governments and infrastructure investors could reduce risks and increase returns by focussing on three areas,

Improving priductivity of existing and new assets

For example, by tuning the regulatory and market structure to improve efficiency and expand capacity.

Making the economic model more attractive to investors

By being smarter about matching capacity expansions to demand and finding additional sources of revenue.

Reducing cost and risk by improving project delivery

By allowing more competition, pushing more risk on to contractors, and encouraging engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) companies to increase their build capabilities.

Several speakers reiterated that one of the major problem in the infrastructure sector is the lack of data for comparing efficiency of construction and operation across projects.

McKinsey suggested that more private sector involvement in infrastructure projects could result in an estimated 30% improvement in construction productivity over 5-10 years, resulting from the combination of 5-15% reduction in the cost of design and planning, 5-10% in engineeering, 5-10% in materials purchase and sub-contracting, 3-5% in construction, and 3-5% from organizational enablers. They estimate that this would translate into a 20% reduction in overall infrastructure spend.

Check out the Self-Paced Guide My First Plug-in

2012-02-22T13:37:28-08:00

Are you an AutoCAD® power user with an interest in becoming even more productive? Would you like to automate or extend the capabilities of AutoCAD, but are new to computer programming? If so, then this guide is designed for you.

“My First Plug-in” is a self-paced tutorial guide for a smooth introduction to the programming world. This is a “one-stop shop” learning path for users who know Autodesk products but are absolutely new to programming and are thinking about taking the plunge. In this guide, you will be working with the AutoCAD .NET Application Programming Interface (API) and the Visual Basic .NET programming language to create a ‘plug-in’ – a module that loads into AutoCAD to extend its functionality. Once you have finished this tutorial, you will understand the basics of .NET programming and how they are applied to AutoCAD.

http://www.autodesk.com/myfirstautocadplugin

There are many resources available on the web for you to learn about the AutoCAD .NET API. However, these resources tend to be designed for people who already know programming. This guide is different: it assumes no previous programming knowledge and yet helps you build your first plug-in quickly, without swamping you with details. You’ll have a working application within an hour of starting this material, irrespective of your current level of programming expertise.

Check Out Kean’s Blog post: http://through-the-interface.typepad.com/through_the_interface/2012/02/my-first-autocad-plug-in.html

Autodesk Design Review Mobile - Now for Android!

2012-02-22T07:24:20-08:00

You asked. We listened! The wait is over for our Android customers. The free Autodesk Design Review mobile app is now available on the Android Market!

Similar to its IOs cousin, the Android version of the Design Review mobile app lets you work with your 2D and 3D design files on your Android phone or tablet.

We're very interested in hearing about your feedback about the app and cloud experience! Please send us your comments using http://feedback.autodesk.com/cloudservices.

Design Review Mobile, Autodesk Cloud, and now Android...just a few more examples of helping you go beyond the paper.

AutoCAD WS - maintenant en 3D pour iPhone et Android

2012-02-22T07:00:20-08:00

AutoCAD WS est maintenant disponible en version 1.4 pour iPhone et Android.

Parmi les nouveautés, vous trouverez le support des fichiers DWG 3D, directement sur votre plate forme mobile.

Shaan a mis en ligne une vidéo montrant cette amélioration :

Autres nouveautés importantes : support de GPS, et impression à distance (“remote plotting”)

Lien pour iOS (App Store Apple) : http://aucad.ws/wDQhps
Lien pour Android (Android Market) : http://aucad.ws/wmWbKS

Maker Startup Weekend at TechShop San Francisco

2012-02-22T09:27:51-08:00

This is a first ever event held by TechShop in San Francisco March 2nd through the 4th 2012. TechShop is like a gym membership for people who want to design and make their own items (personal fabrication). Imagine access to CNC machines, welding equipment, silk screen printers, woodworking equipment, computer workstations with software, 3D scanner and 3D printer, classes, and more without having to build a shop an spend your life's savings on the equipment for it. TechShop has several locations and expanding to more locations, I just hope one gets launched near me in Salt Lake so I have a place to work out my maker skills and unleash more of my warped creativity on the world.

Get ready for the first ever Maker Startup Weekend!

TechShop San Francisco and Autodesk will be hosting this new trend in venture creation—a 54-hour event where developers, designers, marketers, product managers and startup enthusiasts come together to share ideas, form teams, build products and launch startups. This special Maker Startup Weekend will infuse the typical web-based Startup Weekend format with the rapid prototyping and product development capabilities made possible by Autodesk and TechShop. This is the first Maker Weekend specifically geared toward making physical objects to bring to market. The possibilities are endless.

In addition to the weekend event, there will be an intensive day-long maker workshop on Friday, March 2nd. Participants will have the opportunity to take a series of classes in cutting-edge technologies and design software. The courses will be run by Autodesk and TechShop professionals.

Sunday evening will feature an open-to-the-public event wherein each team gives a presentation of their product before a panel of judges. Interested in checking out the result of this amazing weekend?
Maker Startup Weekend's Website

I am not sure if I will be in San Francisco that weekend but if I am I would definitely be at this event.

Cheers,
Shaan

AutoCAD WS Mobile 1.4 What's New Video

2012-02-22T05:54:55-08:00

New features include 3D viewing, GPS support and remote plotting.
Download now for iOS from the App Store here: http://aucad.ws/wDQhps
Download now for Android from the Android Market here: http://aucad.ws/wmWbKS

Next Project Vasari Talk is Today

2012-02-22T04:00:00-08:00

Project Vasari is our technology preview of an expressive design tool for creating building concepts. Project Vasari also includes integrated analysis for energy and carbon via the Autodesk Cloud.

Project Vasari on Autodesk Labs

The Project Vasari team is conducting a periodic series of webinars where you can have some "face time" with the Project Vasari development team. There are demos, tutorials, and answers to your questions. The next session is today, Wednesday, February 22 at 11:30 AM Eastern (UTC-5). The topic for this talk is Custom Zoning and Glazing Deep Dive.

The Project Vasari team notes that when building a successful energy model, it is all about thermal zones. Project Vasari has expanded upon the original Revit Conceptual Energy Analysis feature set in a few significant ways. In this Vasari Talk session the team will take a deep dive into how to customize the zones and glazing in models to create accurate simulations. At the end of this session, you will be able to:

Explain why thermal zoning meeting ASHRAE guidelines is important
Explain how thermal zoning effects energy simulations
Model both automatic and custom thermal zones in Project Vasari
Model both automatic and custom glazing in Project Vasari

Attendees may also wish to check out the ASHRAE Viewer for Revit MEP that is available as an ADN Plugin of the Month. See the April 2011 entry under the Revit section of the catalog page.

Face time is alive in the lab.

Le forum OGC France dans les locaux Autodesk

2012-02-22T01:47:04-08:00

Le forum français de l’OGC (FOF) se réunit ce mardi 22 février 2012 dans les locaux Autodesk, à Paris.

Le FOF est à l’origine de la journée française de l’interopérabilité (la dernière a eu lieu en novembre 2011).

N’hésitez pas à visiter le site du forum français de l’OGC, et à le rejoindre.

Sphere packing in AutoCAD: creating an Apollonian packing using F# Part 3

2012-02-20T05:13:31-08:00

As suggested in the last post, today we’re going to take the results of running the code from that post and use them to generate a hollowed-out sphere. A big thanks to Francesco Tonioni, from our Product Support team in...

Open Geospatial Consortium meeting on smart grid location standards

2012-02-21T15:59:43-08:00

The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) is inviting interested parties to a Smart Grid Location Standards Meeting to be held on March 20 from 8:00-10:00 a.m. at the OGC Technical Committee Meeting in Austin, Texas, USA. This meeting is sponsored/hosted by the OGC, in cooperation with the University of Texas at Austin. The OASIS eMIX (Energy Market Information Exchange) standard uses the OGC Geography Markup Languate (GML) Encoding Standard. The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) CIM (Common Information Model) standard is "harmonized" with WXXM (Weather Information Exchange Model), which is an industry profile based on GML. More standards coordination and development, however, is required to enable efficient geospatial communication within smart grids and between smart grids and "neighboring" activities such as emergency response, disaster management, urban planning and building energy management. Many of the OGC's domains of activity – sensor webs, weather, indoor/outdoor location integration, 3D city models, location services, data fusion and others – have significance for the Smart Grid. Many OGC members have a stake in the Smart Grid information technology market, the growth of which depends on the evolution of a standards infrastructure that includes location standards.

This meeting (an "ad hoc" meeting in the OGC's formal meeting nomenclature) has been set up to assess the level of interest in the community to tackle open geospatial standards for the Smart Grid. The Smart Grid Location Standards Ad Hoc meeting is open to the public and admission is free, but Smart Grid Location Standards Ad Hoc Meeting attendees who don't plan to attend other OGC Technical Committee sessions must register via email at register@opengeospatial.org.