Through the Interface

Heading home

I’m at Changi airport, about to board my Swiss flight for Zurich. I had a great few days, here in Singapore, culminating in a presentation on integrating Kinect Fusion and Leap Motion with AutoCAD for members of the various engineering teams here. It was a lot of fun.

Anyway, I’m heading home, now. I think I’ve set the record for my longest stay in Singapore without having participated in one of the major national pass-times (shopping), although I certainly participated heavily in the other (eating).

Here’s a quick shot from the top of the Marin Bay Sands, the hotel I pictured in the last post, out towards the sea (yes, those are moored cargo containers out there – pretty cool).

Santa Cruz

My flight out of Zurich was delayed slightly – for snow, of all things! – but the trip across to San Francisco was otherwise smooth enough. After spending a fun Saturday night and Sunday in the city – catching up with old friends – it was nice to head back up to San Rafael for the evening.

I spent most of the day today (it’s still Monday, here) in our San Rafael office before we hit the road south to Santa Cruz, where I’ll be attending an offsite meeting for the next few days.

I chose to sit in the back on the way down, which was fun, if a little windy. We took the Pacific Coast Highway, and while I remember it as being more scenic, further down the coast, it was still pretty spectacular.

Going West

I’m hopping on a plane tomorrow to head across to the Bay Area for a week – I have some internal meetings to attend there. This is the first time I’m flying direct from Switzerland – Swiss now run a direct flight from Zurich to SFO – so that’s something, I suppose. I actually have a few more long-haul trips planned over the coming months, but hopefully I’ll manage to keep on posting regularly (I’ve become quite spoiled with having so much less travel since I changing jobs at the beginning of last year). It’s typical that the travel starts to build up just as the sun starts to shine. But anyway – I really have nothing to complain about.

On the technical side, I’d hoped to have something more interesting to post today, but a couple of the projects I’m working on have hit a wall and need some further attention to break on through. I’ll be sharing more on those in the coming days/weeks, I expect (along with more detailed information on the AutoCAD 2014 APIs, as promised a few weeks ago).

Have a great weekend, everyone!

40 and a day

So that’s it, then. As mentioned some months ago, I’ve now successfully transitioned from thirtysomething to fortysomething.

To celebrate the day itself, I shared a cheese fondue with family and a few friends. What was a bit different about this meal is that we had it in the back of a specially adapted horse-drawn carriage that took us along the banks of the river Thielle. A very nice experience to share.

It was beautiful weather, the Alps were visible in the distance and there was still snow on top the the Chasseral (off to the left, in the below photo). Absolutely fantastic.

And yes, there was a little wine consumed along with the cheese. This isn’t the best of photos, but at least I’m not incriminating anyone else present. ;-)

This week I’m planning to take a closer look at the JavaScript API in AutoCAD 2014, although we’ll see if I get the chance to post anything on it before next week (which I’ll be spending in the San Francisco Bay Area). I have a few other topics that may end up sneaking in beforehand – we’ll see.

More on Morgan

For those of you who may have missed it, I really like the Morgan Motor Company, and in particular the latest incarnation of their iconic Morgan 3 Wheeler. Which is why I was very happy to see it featured during Autodesk’s recent 2014 launch event:

What’s fascinating to me is the use of a high-tech design process to create something – which is then built by hand, with a wooden chassis – that has such a low-tech, no frills driving experience:

I’m also a big reader of science fiction, so the idea of donning steampunk aviator goggles and leather helmet and taking this out for a spin is very appealing indeed.

Geneva Motor Show 2013

As I had to meet someone at Geneva airport, this morning, I decided to kill two birds with one stone and spend a few hours visiting the 83rd International Motor Show.

The show opened its doors to the public, today, and includes such stunning vehicles as the $4.6 million Lamborghini Veneno:

Yes, that wasn’t a typo. This car would set you back the best part of $5 million. Ouch.

I went quickly past most of the stands, though, and spent most of my time at Morgan Motor Company’s. As I’ve mentioned before, MMC is a big user of Autodesk software. I also happen to like their cars a great deal.

Here’s a shot of their line-up of Morgans, including the 4/4, Plus 4 and 4 Seater (I think):

The one nearest the camera has a Morgan Two strapped to the back:

MMC has a couple of beautiful Aeros – a Supersports and a Coupe – on their stand, too:

Beautiful, but still outside my price-range (albeit a lot closer than the Veneno ;-).

I spent most time with my personal favourite, the 3 Wheeler:

I had some fun trying one out for size (even if not taking it for a spin):

It’s clearly inspiring to know Autodesk software is used to design bridges and hospitals, but I love knowing it’s used to design Morgan cars, too. :-)

Having too much fun

This picture should say it all. Back next week!

Taking a break

I’m up in the Alps enjoying a week of skiing (in my case snowboarding) with my family. Swiss schools have a very civilised “ski week” where the kids get a week off school sometime between the Christmas and Easter holidays – the specific week varies from canton to canton and this week happens to be Neuchâtel’s (it extends the usual March 1st holiday celebrating the 1848 revolution leading to Neuchâtel joining the Swiss confederation) – so I decided to take the week off to be with them.

Here’s a quick snap I took this morning before heading up to the slopes:

I’ll be online from time to time during the week (like now, for instance), but we’ll see whether I get around to writing any more posts. I’ll do my best to respond to comments, at least.

3D printing Star Wars weaponry using an AutoCAD model

Being a bit of a Star Wars fan, I was delighted to come across this blog post by former MakerBot employee Todd Blatt (now working at Custom 3D Stuff), who modeled an Imperial Scout Trooper Blaster in AutoCAD for 3D printing.

You can download the STL output and the original DWG file from here. Here’s a view on the finished gun with the “shades of gray” visual style:

And here’s one that’s “realistic” with a nice metallic material applied to it:

3D printing functional weapon parts is clearly a contentious subject – which, according to some, may sadly lead to the industry being legislated – but all this is just a bit of harmless fun by enthusiasts who like to dress up. I’m all for it!

Happy New Year!

It’s always a bit of a shock when the annual Autodesk “week of rest” comes to an end: it’s the one time during the year during which the internal flow of email drops down to a trickle and you can truly relax. Although it seems that social media-related traffic no longer means much of a disconnect, these days, but that thankfully comes down to personal choice.

So now it’s over: over the coming days Autodeskers will be returning to their normal routines, preparing for the end of the financial year and/or thinking about our usual first quarter activities (there should be no need to spell out what those are).

Personally, I spent a fantastic break up in the Swiss Alps, in the beautiful village of Adelboden. We skied (in my case snowboarded), breathed clean mountain air and ate some great food, including a very special fondue in an igloo up on Engstligenalp:

For New Year’s Eve we headed back down to a friend’s place near our home, where we celebrated in true Swedish tradition (yes, we live in Switzerland – not Sweden – but 90% of the people at this particular party were Swedes). We headed back up to Adelboden the day after and will remain up here until the weekend.

I’m working on some internal projects this week, but will be getting back into the swing of things over the coming days, too. In the meantime, I’d like to wish all this blog’s readers all the very best for 2013 – I feel as though it’s going to be an exciting year… :-)