Through the Interface

250 years of programmable computing

This is a topic I can’t quite believe I haven’t covered at any point during this blog’s existence, as I'm such a huge fan of a) the Neuchâtel region and b) vintage computing. This year marks the 250th anniversary of the creation of the world’s first programmable computer, which also happened to be the world’s first programmable robot. This might be a bit confusing to some, especially those who associate this concept with Babbage, Turing, etc. The world’s first “computer” was a mechanical automaton that translated a “program” into (mechanical) hand-written output. So no, it’s not a general-purpose computing... Read more →

Gearing up for AU 2024

We’re once again in the craziness before the storm (hmm - wasn’t there meant to be some calm?!?) that is Autodesk University. Requests for meetings are gradually filling up calendars… from my side it’s looking like another busy (but very fun) event. As a reminder, here are the classes that I’ll be part of, in some capacity this year. The class on extending Forma - where I’m co-speaking - has the slides and handout posted, in case you want to check it out ahead of time. In anticipation of this year's event (and the chance to connect with academic... Read more →

Toronto

Last Monday I left my son in Baltimore and headed back to Dulles for a short flight to Toronto to attend internal meetings with our research team. I didn't feel like fighting public transport for 3+ hours to get from Baltimore to Dulles, so took the easy (and much more relaxing) path of taking an Uber. I was there in less than 90 minutes - a not insignificant time saving. I really wish it was more convenient to take public transport here. The flight to Pearson was short - a little over an hour in the air - and... Read more →

Back in Baltimore

I mentioned last time that I was going to be busy preparing and delivering a number of presentations. I’m happy to say that crazy period has mostly come to a close. It was marked on Friday with the recording of the Autodesk University 2024 class that Håvard Høiby and I will be delivering again soon in San Diego. It was a lot of fun preparing and delivering this class with Håvard, I must say. And I think people are going to really engage with the content (especially the information about Forma’s extension framework and SDK). Be sure to check... Read more →

Transitioning from summer mode

Life seems to have shifted quite radically this week, as the summer here in Switzerland starts drawing to a close. A Sunday morning storm reset the temperature to something more autumnal (although these are looking to climb again gradually - we’re not completely done with warm days here, thankfully) and all of my three children started their respective schools again on Monday. The two youngest are once again in the same institution - they’re in the first and last years of our local “lycée” (the Denis-de-Rougement in Neuchâtel), which is the three years of post-mandatory schooling that often precedes... Read more →

DC and Baltimore

I haven’t been the the US purely for personal reasons for quite some time. The last time was probably on our round-the-world trip, and interestingly our first stop was in Washington DC. I’ve just flown across to Dulles, to help my sone get settled into his exchange university. I always love seeing the crazy elevator bus transport system that I haven’t yet seen anywhere else in the world. It’s like you’re in some strange parallel universe where this kind of futuristic system became widespread, back in the day. What I like less about Dulles is the immigration queue. We... Read more →

5 awesome VASA project ideas for the AU2024 Dynamo Hackathon

[My apologies for the click-baity title. I do actually have a list of 5 cool project ideas, if you scroll down the post. So it’s not completely dishonest, at least.] In the last post I mentioned a few classes you can sign up for (and that I’m directly or indirectly involved in) from the Tuesday to Thursday of the AU2024 week (October 15th-17th) in San Diego. I now have something to recommend for the Monday of that week, too! In the past we’ve often had pre-events at AU2024: I wasn’t sure whether there would be one this year or... Read more →

Sign up for AU2024 classes today! Here are some suggestions.

The class catalog for Autodesk University 2024 has been live for a week or two already, with attendees being able to bookmark sessions ahead of the ability to enroll fully. Well, today’s the day that enrollment opens properly, so have at it! Classes often fill up quickly, so doing it sooner can certainly be better than waiting. I also have a few suggestions if you’re at a loss for what to choose. These are all classes that I or my research team are involved in, of course. That’s just how things work around here. :-) It turns out there’s... Read more →

Dorset and London

In the last post I wrote about our recent time in Brittany and Cornwall. Something I find very striking about the English countryside is the thatching on (some of) the rooves. This also apparently exists in Brittany, but seems to be more rare. I'd been speculating about the amount of upkeep needed on a thatched roof and then we came across one being replaced. I suppose you could call it a cottage industry! (Groan.) It turns out a thatched roof can last as long as 40 years - if maintained well - although the ridge will probably need replacing... Read more →

Brittany and Cornwall

We're just back from a fantastic 2+ week roadtrip to France and the UK. I'll talk about the initial part of the trip today and the rest of it in the next post. Our trip towards the UK started on Friday July 5th with a trip to the vet. Dogs entering the UK have to have documented proof of having a de-worming pill administered by a vet less that 120 hours (5 full days) before departure. As our ferry from Roscoff to Plymouth was scheduled for Wednesday July 10th at 9am, we were within the window by taking Daisy... Read more →

Taking stock before the summer

It’s been an interesting year, so far, at many levels, and I have no major expectation that it’s going to become less so in its remaining months. For starters there’s the weather. As someone who is walking a dog for an hour a day, I feel intimately in tune with the weather, these days. And it has sucked. Badly. Even nature seems to be rebelling at the amount of rain, which is in itself remarkable. We’re about to head off to visit friends in Brittany and family in the UK, which means it may well get worse before it... Read more →

The Autodesk Design & Make EduHack

There’s a fun virtual event happening at the end of September, the Autodesk Design & Make EduHack. It’s for students who know some programming - whether studying Computer Science or another STEM discipline - and would like to get connected with Autodesk and learn how to use Autodesk Platform Services. The event is fully virtual - participants will use tools such as Zoom and Slack to communicate about their projects - and should be a great way to meet folks at Autodesk and accelerate skill development. The hacking will take place from September 27-29, 2024, and the after a... Read more →

Using web workers to run intensive browser-side analyses in Autodesk Forma

The topic for this post relates to a project I’ve been working on for a few weeks, now. We’ve taken a complex set of spatial analyses - that use our favourite voxel-based architectural space analysis Dynamo package, VASA - and have translated them to work directly in the browser. (This translation process isn’t really the subject of this series, but it’s pretty interesting, nonetheless, and it’s mostly what I was working on during the recent trip to Munich for the DevCon. Most of the Dynamo code was fairly easy to translate, although things like the automatic lacing of nodes... Read more →

Autodesk DevCon 2024 in Munich

A full week has now passed since more than 500 people were in Munich for the Autodesk DevCon 2024, and yet I'm only now finding time to put proverbial pen to paper. It's just been really busy, but I'll talk more about why at some point in a future post. For this year's event I opted to take the train from Neuchatel to Zurich and then from there on to Munich. In theory that's 5.5 hours from city to city, but that's not really accounting for delays due to the unreliable Deutsche-Bahn network. (That's not me being all “Swiss”about... Read more →

Getting ready for the Autodesk DevCon in Munich

On Monday I’ll be taking the train across to Munich for the 2024 version of the Autodesk DevCon in Europe. I’ll be around at the event on Tuesday and Wednesday, heading back on Thursday morning. If you’re going to be at this year’s DevCon, please do say “Hi”! Read more →

Why I love my job

A quick post today to shamelessly plug the company I've spent so much of my life working for, and more specifically for the organization where I’ve worked most recently, Autodesk Research. This video was compiled from - among other footage - interviews done at Autodesk University 2023. It also happens to include quite a bit of footage for the From Steps to Stories exhibit we created in partnership with The Bentway. If you're interested in coming to work at Autodesk, you can search through the currently open job postings via our careers site. Thanks for watching. :-) Read more →

TechX 2024

In my last post I mentioned my trip to Las Vegas for this year's Autodesk-internal TechX event. This post summarizes the whole week, to give a taste for how these events go. Things started on Sunday evening at the Allē Lounge on 66 roof bar at Resorts World, where Autodesk's technical leadership community got together for a welcome reception. The view was spectacular! I have made a lot of friends at Autodesk, over the years, and TechX is my main chance to reconnect with many of them. I've known Alan Quinton since my days living in the Bay Area... Read more →

Back in Las Vegas for TechX 2024

It’s that time off year again: our internal Autodesk geekfest (called TechX) is being held this week in Las Vegas at the Resorts World Hotel. (It's held in a different city every year.) I’ve come across to attend a Technical Leadership Forum on Monday, and then present a TechX session on using WebAssembly to create a Forma extension (in this case using VASA) on Tuesday. I’ll also be participating in a number of other activities before heading home on Friday. As I wanted to be here in time for a reception on the Sunday night, I headed across on... Read more →

Last chance to submit your class proposal for AU 2024!

Tomorrow is April 30th, which brings to a close the Call for Proposals for Autodesk University 2024, which is being held in San Diego from October 15-17. To get you excited, here are a few images taken by one of the official AU photographers. And yes, it’s at least as cool as it looks in the photos, so do make sure you submit your proposal before tomorrow’s deadline. I’ve kindly been included as a co-speaker on one proposal, this year, which - if accepted - will talk about the Extension API to Autodesk Forma. Let’s see if it makes... Read more →

The World Business Council for Sustainable Development Liaison Delegate Meeting 2024 in Montreux

The title of this post is quite the mouthful, but I thought I’d expand out the acronyms for everyone. Last week a colleague asked if I’d like to join an event that was being held quite locally to me, one that Autodesk has participated in for a number of years now. It’s the WBCSD (World Building Council for Sustainable Development) Liaison Delegate Meeting. Basically delegates from the member companies are invited to join a 3-day event to discuss topics related to transforming there businesses to be more sustainable. I couldn’t make the full three days at such late notice,... Read more →