My Day 3 began with a session by Autodesk’s Guillermo Melantoni’s. “Show Me the Money: Impress Your Customers with Great Presentations“ was a great introduction to applying Autodesk Showcase to AEC presentation. As I own/use a Building Design Suite with Showcase it was very relevant as I’ve only had time to play a little with sample files. Guillermo’s class gave me plenty of techniques to try and inspiration to do it!
“Adopting Lean Processes in BIM” was a presentation on the application of project and process management techniques to a BIM project. It was an interesting approach based on management techniques more often seen in industrial or IT projects.
A meeting meant I missed the mass AU lunch so I set out to find some of my own. Desire for coffee which tastes like coffee took me back to the Ily shop in the Palazzo. It was also a great chance to catch up with Phil Read, and later Lynn Allen who I met while wandering the halls between sessions.
My afternoon resumed with Pixar Designer Jay Shuster’s session: Life in the Art Department. It was a brilliant tour of his career, work and an insight into the creative design process in movies like Cars. Although an accomplished analog artist Jay now uses Sketchbook Pro on a convertible tablet PC for his design work. He mentioned having an iPad but specifically not using it for production work. I loved his drawing style, mostly monotone sketches and found it reminiscent of Syd Mead’s Bladerunner & 2010: A Space Odyssey production sketches. I must start drawing again…
For me the dreaded last session of AU, before the mixer, was Damian & Scott’s “The Interior Side of Revit: Documenting Interior Design Projects”. It was interesting as they presented totally different, yet equally valid, approaches to documenting interiors in Revit. I picked up some new tips but also validated some of the existing approaches to thorny items like signage details. It’s often not learning something new but just finding you have developed similar solutions which gives value from an AU session.
Autodesk University wrapped up with the AU Mixer in the massive Palazzo Ballroom (below). It was the last chance to see everybody in the same space an gave an impression how big this conference is. What recession?
