20+ Years of Design, Technology & More
20+ Years of Design, Technology & More
Singularity University just posted a YouTube link of a recent interview of world renowned paleontologist, and friend Louise Leakey of the Turkana Basin Institute. The interview was by Singularity University faculty chair member and fellow Autodesk employee Jonathan Knowles.
I always enjoy attending user groups and do whenever I am in a town having one. Since I cannot really travel to all user groups, and receive numerous requests to speak and attend in all corners of the globe, I felt this would be one way to attend and participate user groups and customer training sessions almost anywhere. I am expanding the number of my Autodesk presentations without the added expenses of travel, living on planes (in the Hurley seat) and those frustrating airports part. I will begin offering web based meetings to user groups and company teams.
Yesterday I had the pleasure of attending a rocket motor test here in Utah. The test was conducted by ATK and ULA United Launch Alliance. It was amazing event to see the motor prior to firing then the actual ignition from less than a mile away from the ignition site. The first sensation is the bright light from the flame, then the loud sound shaking your body, and about 3 seconds later then some heat. The solid fuel rocket engine burned about 90 seconds.
Big 3D’elicious news for millions of iPhone owners! Capture 3D models from your iPhone for Free!
There is an update today to the 123D Catch Mobile app in the Apple App Store that before only supported the iPad 3, but now also supports the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S as a universal binary. And much more!
I will have a front row seat in the media area when ATK performs a ground test of GEM 60 solid rocket motor on September 6th, 2012. Last time I was at this test site, I had front row for the ARES DM1 fixed motor test and see the amazing engineering before and after firing as well as speak with the real rocket scientists and engineers. It was so amazing that I couldn’t event remember how to use my camera for a few seconds when the DM1 lit up and rumbled the earth.
Autodesk Labs has been busy with updates and posting new technology previews this week. Autodesk Labs is where we can post emerging technologies in a pre-beta technology previews. If you have not visited the Autodesk Labs website recently and browsed what is available, take a few minutes and you might find something like the following preview technologies that may peak your interest. All Autodesk Labs technologies are free, all we ask is you provide feedback on them so they can either evolve and graduate as real Autodesk products and solutions or perhaps let us know they are not of interest and why. Each Autodesk Labs posted project has feedback links on them.
The speaker is Dan Zucker Lead on Autodesk Social Media, and I was the co-speaker. This session will be great for anyone wanting to understand social web and media such as Facebook, Twitter, and more with best practices and applies to everyone from customers, partners, and Autodesk employees.
Unfortunately there is currently a class conflict as I have another session at the same time.
I recently was in in extremely Northern Kenya near the Ethiopian border on Lake Turkana for a few weeks with Dr. Louise Leakey, Deming Yang of Kenya National Museum, and my colleague Gonzalo Martinez for an Autodesk research project. It changed my perspective on the world, and life.
Perhaps you’re a gardener and have seen these evil little butterflies (Cabbage Moth / Cabbage Butterfly Plutella xylostella, Pieris rapae) that lay eggs on cabbage, then the caterpillars devour your vegetables. Why is it this is the only butterfly that I don’t like and does bad things? It is referred to as both a moth and butterfly so I will assume it is more annoying moth than a delicate innocent beautiful butterfly. It turns out these little delicate insects are highly territorial and wont go into a garden area where another is.
Old remedies were to spray tons of chemicals all over everything, spread egg shells in your garden, or place white paper butterfly decoys - but now we have 3D printing.
So I designed a 3D cabbage butterfly in AutoCAD end used STLOUT or 3DPRINT command to generate a STL file for use by 3D printers. I could also have easily designed the 3D Butterfly and generated an STL 3D Print export using the free 123D solid modeling software. I then printed it on my MakerBot Replicator and then affixed it with fishing line to some 1/8” copper wire.
Project Geppetto is our free technology preview for easily adding realistic autonomous crowds to 3ds Max animation and scenes. Project Geppetto helps bring your designs to life. This is definitely one of the more funs things to come alive in the Autodesk Labs.
They appeared like zombies to me in the last Project Geppetto Labs technology preview release as the characters were limited and a default gray scale with rough edges, Now there is a nice textured display mode for the characters - no melting flesh, and do not feed on brains, so technically they are not zombies.