AU 2010 Classes

The class catalogs for AU 2010 – for both the physical and virtual classes – have now been posted to the AU website:

I have a few AU classes scheduled – thanks to any of you who took the time to vote for them.

My first class is virtual…

Getting to Know the AutoCAD® Plugins of the Month (CP212-1V)

Tuesday November 30th, 6:00-7:00 am PST
Tuesday November 30th, 11:00 am-12:00 pm PST

The Autodesk Developer Network (ADN) team has been publishing "Plug-ins of the Month" on Autodesk Labs for over a year. Each of these plug-ins extends an Autodesk® product in a useful or interesting way, and is provided with full source code! Attend this class for an introduction to the various AutoCAD plug-ins that have been published (with a brief mention of those published for other products). We will take a detailed look at the source code of a few of the most popular plug-ins, to help explain their architecture and implementation.

All Levels. AutoCAD users with an interest in learning more about programming, and how they might use Microsoft .NET to tailor AutoCAD to their specific business needs.

I’ll be recording this on the Sunday afternoon, apparently, which means arriving in Las Vegas on the Saturday. The first broadcast session is at 6am on the morning after the ADN party at AU, which is going to be a little hard-going. Ah well. I’m also planning on attending the DevLab session that we’re holding on that day, so I’ll have to either duck out or find a quiet corner to go online for the second session.

The other two are physical sessions…

Integrate F# into Your C# or VB.NET Application for an 8x Performance Boost (CP322-2)

Wednesday December 1st, 11:00 am-12:00 pm

Learn how you can use F#, the new programming language from Microsoft®, to achieve performance gains in applications managing multiple, asynchronous tasks. We will examine a sample application to understand how it was designed to download and process multiple point cloud files from the Microsoft's Photosynth® web service and how the use of F# boosted performance by eight times.

While examining the "Point Clouds on a Shoestring" application, we will discuss the benefits of using the Windows® Presentation Foundation (WPF) when designing a modern GUI. We will discuss additional techniques, such as using an advanced browser component to monitor HTTP traffic during a browsing session and isolating a modeless UI in a separate executable to increase portability across 32- and 64-bit platforms.

Intermediate. VB.NET/C# developers interested in learning about the benefits of F# and non-programmer attendees of the "Point Cloud on a Shoestring" session interested in more in-depth technical information about working with point clouds

Point Clouds on a Shoestring (AC427-4)

Thursday December 2nd, 1:30-2:30 pm

Have you always wanted to play around with point clouds but your boss will not buy you an expensive laser scanner? Come to this entertaining class to see how it is possible to use "free" technology, such as Microsoft® Photosynth®, to generate 3D point
clouds from 2D photographs. See a live demonstration of a real-world object being “captured” using nothing but a digital SLR and then brought into AutoCAD® 2011 as a 3D point cloud.

We will also spend some time looking at AutoCAD 2011 point cloud capabilities and the state of “reality capture” technology in the industry. A separate session in the Customization and Programming track, "Integrate F# into Your C# or VB.NET Application for an 8x Performance Boost," will take a look more closely examine the technology shown in this session.

All Levels. Anyone interested in learning about point clouds and how they can be generated and used with tools such as Microsoft Photosynth and AutoCAD 2011

In a sense it would have made more sense to hold the first “under the hood” session after the second, but in reality it probably doesn’t matter: I suspect different people will attend each session, in any case.

To streamline the live demo in the second of these sessions, I’ve just bought an Eye-Fi SD card for my digital SLR, which should allow me to stream pictures directly to my PC as they’re being taken. At least that’s my hope – I’m very much looking forward to trying it out.

Hopefully see you in Vegas! :-)