24 May 2013

Autodesk Gallery

I recently had the chance to visit Autodesk's offices in San Francisco and Portland. This was part of me joining their Expert Elite Program. I'm still not sure what they mean by "expert" but I'm trying to pretend to know cool tricks on their newest software Fusion 360 ... if you're looking for a CAD program that doesn't feel intimidating and allows you to create cool shapes in an easy, fun way, then Fusion is for you. Below is a slideshow of the trip. Part one: San Francisco... always a treat! I got to meet an amazing group of expert users from various disciplines. I still can't believe how knowledgeable and passionate they were about Autodesk products... very cool! And on a side note, I still regret that I don't have pictures from a great dinner that I had at my friend Adam's house. Got to spend a fun evening with his family and friends.

 Hotel Lobby
 
 One of the brainstorming sessions at the Expert Elite summit... very cool to see different thought-flows.
 
 Food truck mall.
 
 View from hotel room... lucky!

As part of the summit we got to go to Autodesk's Gallery. This place is full of cool projects and concepts, all done with Autodesk products. Whether you're into CAD or not, the body of work blows your mind away... There's everything from building models to legos to $50k watches to $2 eyeglasses.

 Gallery lobby... can you say surface continuity?

 Beautiful guitar with composite body and aluminium frame... made entirely out of 3D printed parts.

 Model of Shanghai Tower

 Characther modeled in Mudbox

 Cool auto concept from MB

 Bench designed by Carl Bass, Autodesk's CEO

FDM model (in front) that was sent to Chinese artists to sculpt a large version out of stone.

Lego dinosaur... they build it in CAD to calculate structural stability.

This is how the interior looks like... looks like a city to me.

More auto concepts... this one is based off a biomimicry principle that would let cars be grown just like plants... they would grow out of a single part into the final shape... I know, I don't get it either.

 Stone-carved 3D model.

 3D printed lamp... so cool.

 Aluminium elephant made out of sheet metal.

 Layered modeling technique (using laser cutter instead of 3D printer).

Full-size, 3D printed motorcycle. No, it doesn't work ... and how much would that model cost?

Beautiful airplane frame using biomimicry-based structural modeling.

 Exploration of nature-based patterns.


Part two of the trip was going to the Portland office to meet with the Fusion 360 development team. Autodesk was kind enough to also invite two grad students of our program who have been putting the software to good use this quarter: Bridget Sheehan and Erica Nwankwo.

 Portland awesomeness.

 RIT-ID well represented in Portland!

 One Laptop per Child explained in full detail at the Portland Gallery.
 
 With foam-core mock ups included!

 Great conversation with the Autodesk team.

 Pac-Man tournament at an arcade after the event. Got to meet a lot of great people during this trip.

Awesome pinball machines.