Entryway to Autodesk University 2009
Hard to believe it has been a few weeks since Autodesk University. Here were some of the takeaways I had from the conference:
- Conferences are down but not out: Attendance was down but not by as much as I’ve seen at other conferences – AU attendance went from 9,000 last year to 6,000 +/- this year. Also, it looks like Autodesk did a nice job promoting the “virtual” side of the event with over 22,000 participants.
- Our class called “Bringing BIM to the Field” (aka, Field BIM) was really well attended: Over 225 people joined as I presented case study examples of tying Vela and Navisworks together for Skanska (Commissioning of a Data Center) and Tocci Building Corporation (Tracking of FF&E, and punch list).there has been some good buzz about the topic, like in Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad BIM. And it was helpful to be able to hand out the new Autodesk brochure featuring Field BIM and Navisworks.
- Speaking of Field BIM, going straight from the model to the physical world is a key technology area that continues to evolve.
Rotating propeller from 3D printer
One serious example from the exhibit hall that was very interesting to see was a fully functional airplane propeller mockup made entirely using 3D printing direct from a model. One not-so-serious example involved, well, you know the old jokes about when offices first got Xerox machines that one of the first jokey things people did was to make photocopies of their, ahem, anatomy (face, other parts)? Well, now it’s a whole new ballgame because now you can laser scan your face!
Laser scan of your face
Outside of the exhibit hall in the casino proper you can have a beautiful Lucite “sculpture” made of you and your loved ones, all done from a laser scan. I know of at least one VDC guru out there who got his own face scanned and then requested the point cloud so he could see himself in 3D in Navisworks. You know who you are…
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