It was quite an impulsive decision which resulted in me attending Autodesk University 2017. I had been thinking about it for a while, but not seriously, and was browsing the session catalogue one evening when I saw:
FDC128313 -- Quantum: A Next-Generation BIM Ecosystem – Jim Awe & Shiya Luo
I immediately clicked Register, then grabbed a seat in this one hour session. Eleven thousand Kilometres is quite a long way to go for a 60 minute meeting and it wasn’t even part of the main AU event!
Forge DevCon?
The Quantum session was part of Forge DevCon which ran the Monday before AU2017. It was a day aimed at developers using, or interested in, the emerging Autodesk Forge cloud development environment. I’m not a developer but the small additional cost of the extra day was well worth the investment.
Forge DevCon Keynote
Jim Quanci (Senior Director, Software Partner Development) kicked off the keynote and, perhaps, had the best explanation of what Forge is about: ‘Forge - The Lego box to connect your designs’.
He then introduced Duleesha Kulasooriya (Deloitte Center for the Edge) who took a look at why you might use Forge, rather than how to use it or what it is.
Duleesha spoke about the social, industrial and economic changes that are driving transformation. The ‘Pace of innovation’, ‘Nature of demand’ and ‘Economics of distribution’ are impacting everyone. It was an interesting view of the reasons for change, and how you might respond… with Forge of course!
Forge Updates
Brian Roepke (Head of Product Management for the Autodesk Forge Developer Platform) talked about the new API developments for Forge focused on process integration, reality capture, webhook notifications and design automation for Revit and Inventor.
Brian also announced Forge Fund support for companies developing Forge based solutions. This included Smartvid.io who use Forge integration with BIM 360 Docs and their own AI to analyse Video and Photos from building projects. This automatically highlights site activity with the emphasis on improving safety, quality and productivity. Interesting to see ‘design’ systems and information capture being used to optimise behaviour on site.
LIMBFORGE
The keynote also introduced me to a brilliant humanitarian use of cloud design technology: www.limbforge.org
They make 3d printed upper limb prosthetics for those who can't afford them. Their system enables scanning of limbs, configuration of designs (modelled in fusion from typed in dimensions entered in fields with AI design automation) and the best solution is manufactured in the field.
Patient feedback and evaluative case studies are also incorporated for even better results. It is an impressive demonstration of advanced technology bringing, formerly impossible, life changing results.
The event concluded with a ‘fireside chat’ (without fire!) including Scott Reese (Senior Vice President, Manufacturing & Construction Products) & Brian Mathews (VP Platform Engineering) —who I’d meet with later. Some outtakes from that:
- 51% of Autodesk employees come from acquisitions
- Make data, process and workflows the centre of what you do
- How do you connect to your team via data, AI and workflows, not tool centric solutions.
- Autodesk’s future is being built on Forge
Quantum
Although just an hour this session was a great introduction on how BIM, Forge and web services could transform project workflows. It demo’ed Forge use of High-Frequency Data Management (HFDM) technology to put "data at the center" of a project. Quantum isn’t an application, more a platform enabling applications (cloud and desktop) to work better together. That is a taste of Quantum, more on this in future posts!
BIM 360 API for Construction Ecosystems
This session outlined the current and (near) future developments in the Forge API. This included improvements in document management, (user) account admin, markup and checklists. It didn’t mention some big changes to 360 which would be announced later in the event, but looking back there were plenty of clues here!
Demystifying the BIM 360 and Forge APIs
‘Autodesk 360’ is really a mix of ‘clouds’ and ‘applications’, some built, some acquired. This session outlined the history of how they came together and how they differ. It went a long way to help understand how the various components interact, or don’t. An announcement later in AU2017 would foreshadow how this will change, for the better.
Industry 4.0: AI and the future of manufacturing
Tom "Elvis" Jones (Solutions Architect at AWS) outlined the AWS infrastructure which is powering a large proportion of ‘the cloud’ and how it applies to design, process delivery and storage.
University research and start-up development with Forge
Forge was seen in action in these impressive university startup projects from around the world.
Applications included eyewear design and manufacture, 3D printing (even a drink!), visualizing progress tracking on BIM construction models and Forge for FM (with Hololens and Cortana integration). Some really impressive work!
