20+ Years of Design, Technology & More
20+ Years of Design, Technology & More
Autodesk CEO Carl Bass discusses the myths and truths of 3D printing in opinion editorial in Wired.
“What are its real life applications?”
”Will it bring back old manufacturing?”
”Has it reached the Hype point”?
We're looking for the best, the brightest, and the most innovative and creative faculty, students, and researchers that you know, and we need your assistance in encouraging them to apply to the IDEA Studio - Autodesk's unique scholar-in-residence program. The IDEA Studio is now accepting proposals for residencies that will take place in November 2013 through January 2014, and proposals are due May 15.
Autodesk teammates Arthur Harsuvanakit and Evan Atherton are an amazing dynamic duo (3Duo) researching digital design, fabrication, and 3D printing technologies. They have developed some 3D printed speaker enclosures after Maurice Conti said “Hey, this would make a cool speaker” and then determined the project goals. The first speaker appeared on the cable channel Current TV with Autodesk CEO Carl Bass as well as featured in my Autodesk University 2012 session.
As I mentioned on my Twitter account (@ShaanHurley) Friday, Autodesk’s own digital mad scientist or researcher in the Office of the CTO Brian Pene created a 3D rigged character using the new Project Pinocchio technology preview from Autodesk Labs and stepped it up a few levels. He took the rigged character he created and using a Xbox 360 Kinect & FaceShift was able to control the character in Autodesk Maya live in real-time. What a great way to read a bedtime stories to your young kids and give them deep dark nightmares.
The reintroduction of Autodesk T-Splines Plug-in for Rhino and discussion on a new version 4 coming was discussed in a recent live webcast. You may remember T-Splines (my friends in nearby Provo Utah) were acquired back in November of 2011 and Autodesk stated at the time they would continue supporting non-Autodesk products which T-Splines was developed for. Since that time updates have been released and a renewed effort for new versions has been announced.
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Catch up on T-Splines with the recent webcast by Autodesk T-Splines Product Manager Matt Sederberg and Autodesk CEO Carl Bass. This is another frank and honest discussion by Carl on design software tools and his actual use of the tools.
Autodesk has released a short video on the role of design from the perspective of some visionaries: Mickey McManus – CEO of MAYA design Eve Blossom – Founder Lulan Artisans Christine Furstoss – Global Technology Director, Manufacturing & Materials Technologies.…
Last Friday and Saturday Autodesk participated as a sponsor in the Kairos Society Summit in New York City. The Kairos Society is a non-profit organization founded to foster innovation and entrepreneurship by students.
“Founded in 2008, the Kairos Society is a non-profit 501(c)3 organization based in the United States. We work to find and empower the young pioneers who will push the world forward through entrepreneurship and innovation - we do so with the support of the top universities, mentors, and corporations across the globe. At the Kairos Society, we view today’s global problems as opportunities for entrepreneurs to focus on the meaningful businesses and innovations that will radically change the world for the better. Not only for our generation, but for the generations to come.”
Autodesk CEO Carl Bass and Autodesk CTO Jeff Kowalski were at the event as were about 6 Autodesk employees including myself presenting on the subjects of 3D design and 3D Printing. Many of our 3D printing friends like Stratasys and Shapeways were also at the event.
Christian, Jesse and Shaan at Kairos Shaan at Kairos
During our panel session on 3D Printing where we spoke of Autodesk role in developing software and technologies used in design and also supporting 3D printing. We covered a great deal of ground in a short amount of time to 350 students broken up into 3 groups. I absolutely love discussing technology with students as they come up with the greatest questions and ideas since they don’t know the boundaries or set in their ways. During the session I brought up the hot topic of the 3D Printing pen “3Doodler” on Kickstarter that was trying to raise $30,000 and are now OVER 1.8 million dollars and causing a buzz all over in social media and even among researchers in the 3D printing space. In fact there was a long email thread I was involved in the evening before the Kairos event discussing what it really was and if it was really 3D printing, or really a free form 3D sketching tool. When I brought up the 3Doodler topic a gentlemen in the back of the session pointed to himself and so I asked what he wanted to add to the discussion, it was none other than the co-founder of WobbleWorks and the 3Doodler pen Maxwell Bogue.
3Doodler: The World's First 3D Printing Pen
Max of WobbleWorks and the 3Doodler 3D Prnting Pen Shaan of Autodesk and Max of 3Doodler Pen
Kairos Event on the NYSE Stock Exchange FloorOn Saturday we were invited to participate in the launching of the Kairos 50 on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. What a surreal and interesting venue where many of the startups in the Kairos 50 were presenting their projects.We were all dressed up in suits and I even had a tie on.
Shaan in a SUIT!!
Shaan and the AnybotI also met Anybot a virtual presence robot that allows people to attend remote locations even attend meetings while away over the Internet. Autodesk’s own Jonathan Knowles has had a robot but this is a new and sleek model. One cool thing was the ability to attach a mobile device running Google Hangouts and that could then be used to allow people to join a Hangout session and experience an event or place remotely. Would love to have some of these at AU.
Cheers,
Shaan
For those that love to participate in providing early feedback that helps shape the future of Autodesk products and technologies, there are several great options to get involved. You don’t have to be on the bleeding edge or the top Autodesk product user in the universe as all skill and experience levels are encouraged and needed.
I read an online articles headline stating blueprints were dead. I would love that, but in reality I find that proclamation of blueprints being dead as a headline hard to believe at this time. This topic also started a flurry of tweets discussing if paper blueprints were really dead and discussing if hardware could survive some work environments.
I thoroughly enjoyed the return of the Engineer vs. Designer podcast, especially this one featuring Autodesk’s own CEO and chief Maker Carl Bass. The entertaining interview by Josh Mings and Adam OHern was great as it felt almost like I shoulder surfed in on a candid conversation about design software at a lounge somewhere in Brooklyn.