CGarchitect Report on Autodesk University 2010

Autodesk University 2010
by Jeff Mottle


A few weeks ago I attended Autodesk University 2010 in Las Vegas. 2010 saw 30,000 attendees, a record number, participate from more than 72 countries in all five gatherings - Las Vegas, Tokyo, Beijing and AU virtual. The theme of this year’s event was "The Power of the Possible".

During my three days in Las Vegas I was able to catch up with a number of key Autodesk staff for on camera interviews to speak about some of the new technologies and transformations that are occurring within the industry. Those of you who follow our forums will also have been anticipating our in-booth interview with Ry Bruscoe, founder of the new startup called RevUp Render.

"Great design has always had an impact, but today, the need for that impact is greater than ever. We are facing urgent and complex global challenges that demand our most creative work and innovative solutions", said Carl Bass, CEO and president of Autodesk, during the opening Autodesk University keynote.

This year saw continued coverage of Autodesk’s push towards "Infinite Computing", which many of you may know as Cloud Computing. Jeff Kowalski, Autodesk CTO, commented that "Infinite computing is changing the nature and potential impact of design in important ways. Now, we can create amazingly robust design explorations, brilliant visualizations and precise simulations more efficiently and easily than ever before."

One of the more powerful presentations during the keynote was given by Bart Nye, the public information officer at CalTrans. In partnership with firm Parsons Brinkerhoff they were able to successfully visualize new roadways before ever being built using a real-time driving simulator and some fantastic visualizations and animations.

Bart Nye, public information officer for CalTrans, reveals how CalTrans used visualization technology to more effectively communicate major transportation construction projects to the public, enabling them to minimize traffic and optimize efficiency.

Carl Bass and Jeff Kowalski also spoke with Press to answer questions and to speak candidly about some of the things going on at Autodesk including the new “Infinite Computing” push. CGarchitect recorded the event which can be viewed below.

AU 2010 Press Conference with Carl Bass and Jeff Kowalski

Late in the week I spent 30 minutes with Brian Matthews, the VP of Autodesk Labs. Those who read last year’s AU report will have seen my coverage of his seven technology trends. This year CGarchitect recorded several on-camera demos of the new technologies that released into Labs which followed his predictions. Brian spoke specifically about their Reality Capture, Cloud Computing and Cloud Delivery technologies as well as where things might be headed in 2011.

CGarchitect Interview with Brian Matthews (VP of Autodesk Labs)

A number glimpes into the future revealed themselves during several presentations during the show. I've detailed some of the more notable techhnologies below:

Project Galileo

Project Galileo is an easy-to-use planning tool for creating 3D city models from civil, geospatial and building data, and 3D models. Galileo also enables users to sketch conceptual infrastructure ideas within the 3D city model. Using Galileo, planners, GIS analysts, project managers, and architects can help stakeholders better understand infrastructure projects and plans in the context of the built and natural environment.

Project Galileo

Project Dasher

Project Dasher is a web-based application that helps to augment existing Autodesk Revit design models with real-time building submeter and sensor data on electricity and occupancy. Carl Bass spoke about how this project has been implemented within in their own building in Toronto to assess building performance and to compare that data to analysis data which was gathered during the design process.


Project Dasher

Project Vasari

Project Vasari is an expressive design tool for creating building concepts. Very similar to SkechUp in many ways, but goes a step further by providing integrated tools for analysis and energy modeling.

Project Vasari

On the visualization side I was also able to catch up with Ken Pimental again for a recap on 2010. Ken is the Director of Visual Communication Solutions within Autodesk's Media & Entertainment division and is responsible for guiding 3ds Max, Project Newport, Mudbox, ImageModeler, Stitcher and FBX solutions. Ken spoke to us about the recent release of iray, advances in GPU rendering and visualization within the cloud.

CGarchitect Interview with Ken Pimentel (Director of Visual Communication Solutions at Autodesk)

If crowd visualization are your thing, you’ll be glad to hear that “People Power” is on the way. Autodesk is working on technology to allow secondary visualization of realistic crowds.  Several demos of this were shown at AU, but Ken also posted a video of this on his blog as well:


People Power

By now many of you know about Project Excalibur (XBR) which is the restructuring of 3ds Max. Late last year Autodesk provided some insights into their plans publically. Next month they will be hosting a new webcast to give everyone an update. There will be three identical sessions held on February 8th.  If you are interested in attending one of these live webcasts be sure to register here: 3ds Max Design XBR Webinar Registration



3ds Max Design XBR Webinar Registration



News from the Autodesk University tradeshow floor

This year the tradeshow floor was filled with BIM consulting companies than I could count, but as I alluded to earlier in this article; we did have a chance to stop by the RevUP Render booth to speak with Ry Bruscoe. Ry is the founder of RevUpRender a new startup that is bridging the gap between designers and the cloud with a number of new product offerings. Ry demoed them for us in his booth during our on-camera interview.

CGarchitect Interview with Ry Bruscoe from RevUp Render

M&E Keynote

Every year Autodesk wows audiences during their M&E keynote with exciting new developments and/or films developed using their products. Last year we were treated to a 30 min preview of Avatar, but this year upped the ante with a sneak peak of TRON: Legacy, directed by first time Director Joe Kosinski who started in architectural visualization and is an Architect himself. While I can’t show you that preview here I was able to speak with Joe by phone last week for a quick interview about the film and his work on it. We’ll be releasing that interview along with that of Chris Nichols, the Lighting Lead on the film who works at Digital Domain. Chris is also an Architect and spent a number of years running the visualization department at Gensler before moving into visual effects. Stay tuned to that interview in the coming weeks. In the interim, here is the trailer to the movie. The lighting and visual treatment has Joe's style written all over it and is well worth checking out. If you want to see some of his earlier work, check out his website HERE.
 

TRON: Legacy (Directed by Joe Kosinski)

Autodesk University will be held again next year in Las Vegas at The Venetian hotel from November 29th to December 1, 2011. Mark your calendars and hopefully I’ll see you there at one of our impromptu CGarchitect member dinners!

CGarchitect Dinner at AU 2010

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