The Future of Making Things - Autodesk University 2015

Autodesk continued to react to changes that shape the design and manufacturing markets at AU 2015. It was an event that catered to a world of “always on” media, where 30,000 people tuned into main-stage sessions live through social media channels. Adam P. Spring reports “live” from Las Vegas for GW.

Autodesk University (AU) 2015 was held at the Venetian Hotel, 1-3 December 2015. For the 10,000 people in attendance, it was an event focused on collaboration and learning. There were, for example, several demonstrations on the ways in which humans and robots could work together; and where iterative design workflows can help develop more efficient and environmentally friendly products. Every aspect of infrastructure and asset management was geared toward a low waste economy.

Just an Open-air Factory

General sessions were used to re-imagine what design and manufacture actually mean in a connected world of sensors and sensing; where processes once viewed as being separate to one another have now started to blend. Autodesk CEO Carl Bass used the construction process tied to the new Apple Campus in Cupertino, California, as an example. At first, he likened its construction to that of aircraft, where each part going into the build is catalogued. This and other practices taking place at the Apple site eventually led him to reframe how he viewed the construction process: “Building and manufacturing are converging… I’d realised that the Apple construction site is actually just an open-air factory.”

Themes linked to rethinking industrial, design and manufacturing based processes ran throughout the general sessions. Autodesk’s chief technology officer, Jeff Kowalski,  continued to outline the benefits of iterative and computationally driven design processes. Later sessions, chaired by podcast wunderkind Roman Mars, put several industrial revolutions into context, and showed what it actually took to be a small sized car manufact­urer operating out of Liverpool in the UK.

The Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) presentation given in the Mars sessions readdressed how films were made and consumed. Vicki Dobbs Beck, ILM Strategic Planning, used parts of past Star Wars films to show how storytelling is changing in an age of interactive media. Scenes from the desert planet Tatooine were reconstructed so that the audience could reimagine events through the eyes of C-3PO. ILM is re-examining what film actually means to an experience-driven audience, where virtual reality headsets and haptic sensors can be used to create immersive environments in a home or cinema setting.

New Body Identities

The MIT Media Lab presentation given in the opening general session showed how mind over matter was readdressing human disabilities as an idea. Hugh Herr, Biomechatronics at MIT Media Labs,  lost the bottom parts of his legs in a climbing accident in the 1980s. Since that time, he has developed a series of prosthetic legs. These were based on him working with the circumstances in place; not viewing his condition as a disability. His presentation was thought-provoking for several reasons: the most powerful one was that body modification and upgrade will be part of human existence in the not too distant future.

Blended Solutions

Chris Murray, a creative technologist at Autodesk, gave an interesting presentation on bringing 3DS Max projects into Stingray. The latter is a game engine, which was known as Bitsquid before it was acquired by Autodesk in 2014. In many ways, Stingray was one of many examples where services and solutions across the Autodesk product line continued to blend with one another. The increased relationship between ReCap and AutoCAD also exemplified this notion of a blended approach to product development.

Construction

Autodesk was looking to increase its footprint in construction-driven markets at AU 2015. Indicators for this included Project Alexandria and an evolving relationship with Topcon. The BIM to Business (BIM2B) initiative promoted by Topcon, for example, is centred around Autodesk solutions. AutoCAD, BIM 360, Navisworks and Revit feed into solutions like Topcon’s LN 100, PS and DS total stations. Information and communication technologies (ICT) now drive the business model, which Autodesk has been working on for some time.

Project Alexandria

Project Alexandria is a pragmatic example of cloud or distributed computing geared toward construction-based applications. This is a project management tool built around a now fully connected world, where multi-sensor devices like tablets and smartphones bridge the gap between onsite and office-based activities.  Demand for Project Alexandria was so high that it shorted the timeframe in which BIM360 Docs were launched (http://bim360.com/docs).

Advancing BIM

Building Information Modelling (BIM) played a fundamental role throughout AU 2015. Revit sessions were fully booked and BIM City remained a key part of the exhibition area. It was, however, the subtle indicators of things to come that made BIM at AU 2015 particularly interesting.

Arol Wolford, who sat on the board of Revit before it was acquired by Autodesk, showcased his VIMtrek based solutions in the exhibition area. His Atlanta based start-up, which also has a sister company called SmartBIM, utilises the power of the Unity game engine. Workflows are centred around what is being called Visual Information Modelling (VIM), immersive and experiential-driven processes where the ability to work with smart information is paramount.

Members of Oregon based M-SIX were also in attendance at AU 2015. Their cloud-based solution was called VEO; a smart database created from the ground up over a seven-year period. In a demonstration given post AU 2015, it became very clear just how powerful VEO was. This was especially the case in environments where construction and building design was of primary interest. The ability to access, organise and connect all types of project information easily and efficiently make VEO a very powerful management tool.

ICT continues to impact upon design, manufacture and location-aware based applications; much in the same way they have at previous AUs in Las Vegas and, more recently, the ESRI User Conference 2015. Amar Hanspal, senior vice president at Autodesk, reaffirmed this in the media analyst luncheon. He saw the company as focusing on four essential technology trends: cloud or distributed computing, new methods of manufacture, the Internet of Things (IoT) and customer engagement. ICT was the common ground between all of these trends, as are the low cost, multi-sensor based devices fuelling them.

The Venetian

The Venetian Hotel is the second largest hotel in the world. It contains 4049 rooms, 3068 suites and a 120,000-square-foot casino. Inspired by its Italian namesake, it contains several features based on Venice’s famous landmarks. These include the Palazzo Ducale, Piazza San Marco, Piazzetta di San Marco, the Lion of Venice Column and the Column of Saint Theodore, St Mark’s Campanile, and the Rialto Bridge. The Venetian was built and opened between April of 1997 and May 1999. Total cost of construction was US$1.5 billion.

Summary

Autodesk continues to adapt in marketplaces driven by and evolving around “always on” media. At AU2015, collaboration and imagination were at the heart of everything on display. In terms of imagination, there were no restrictions anymore. The digitisation of design and manufacturing processes now enables anyone to be a user creator.

The construction industry was a big part of AU 2015. Evolving relationships with companies like Topcon, who were using BIM 360 solutions alongside their total station and 3D layout product lines, were prime indicators of this. Collaborations between JE Dunn and Autodesk Construction also demonstrated where the future of project management is going.

This article was published in Geomatics World March/April 2016