AU Beat | The Voice of AU

Experience Design for Architects, and Product, Package, Interior, and Interactive Designers

Designers are always looking for ways to design engaging experiences for potential and existing customers. But how do you design engaging experiences, especially if they’re new, subtle, or emotionally layered? David Freeman is an authority in the field of evoking emotional engagement in a wide variety of products and media. He shows how having the right volcabulary and creative tools opens up the possibility for great design and meaningful customer experiences.

Transportation PowerTrack: A Holistic Approach to Solving Transportation Industry Problems

Listen as Arnab Ganguly, Autodesk Senior Technical Marketing Manager, discusses this year’s Transportation PowerTrack. Arnab explains how the economic downturn is offering opportunities for upgrading a country’s infrastructure, and how this has influenced the direction and approach of this year’s Transportation PowerTrack curriculum.

Jim Balding on the AU 2009 Building PowerTrack

Jim Balding, veteran AU speaker, and the driving force behind the first AU PowerTracks , provides an overview of the Building PowerTrack, which is designed this year to look at Revit as a whole, showing how to use Revit across all the disciplines (e.g. interiors, structure, mechanical, and plumbing) and through most of a project’s phases, plus how all of this relates to Integrated Project Delivery (IPD).

Inventor PowerTrack: Solving Industry Problems Using Advanced Techniques

Listen as Garin Gardiner, Technical Marketing Manager for the Autodesk® Inventor® product line, discusses the four main themes of this year’s Inventor PowerTrack, each designed to address very specific user and design issues, and to maximize efficiency during the economic downturn.

Power Up Your AutoCAD Experience

Join AutoCAD Powertrack lead, J.C. Malitzke and AU PowerTrack Manager, Matt Murphy as they discuss this year’s innovative strategy for the AutoCAD PowerTrack—from 3D solids, surfaces, and mesh modeling techniques to intelligent drawing, documentation, and annotation to managing content standards. Find out why a mature software product like AutoCAD still offers many interesting challenges and learning opportunities, even for veteran AutoCAD users.

Introducing the CAD Management PowerTrack

AU PowerTracks offer tightly focused, in-depth training through classes that build upon each other, providing advanced learning that surpasses what can be gained from taking individual classes. Listen as Matt Murphy, AU PowerTrack Manager interviews Robert Green about this year’s newest addition to the PowerTrack family, the CAD Management PowerTrack. This PowerTrack offers some special bonuses designed specifically for CAD managers. Find out what’s planned.

Design West Engineering and LEGOLAND - Part 2

Find out how Design West Engineering incorporates sustainable design strategies into their practice and the role that Revit MEP played in the construction of the SEA LIFE™ Aquarium at LEGOLAND® California Resort in Carlsbad, CA. In 2008, Design West received the Revit BIM Experience Award from Autodesk.

Design West Engineering and LEGOLAND - Part 1

What McKinstry Looks For in College Grads

Ralph Bond of Autodesk interviews McKinstry principals David Allen and Tony Stewart about what they look for when hiring college graduates. Find out what it take to become part of this Seattle company, renowned for its focus on sustainability and green building technologies.

Milltechnology: Using Revit MEP in the Real World

Ralph Bond of Autodesk interviews Chris Milford of Milltechnology Ltd, a London-based, building services coordination company. MillTechnology works with the building services contractors that provide the HVAC ductwork, pipework, fire systems and electrical installations, providing clients with a single, fully coordinated, 3D building model for the complete project. Chris discusses how they incorporate sustainable design strategies into their practice, their most interesting projects using Revit® MEP, and what he sees as the biggest trends in his industry right now.

Keeping AutoCAD Fresh, Cool, and Relevant

Listen to Guri Stark, VP and General Manager, Autocad and Platform Products, talk about where Autodesk is taking AutoCAD®. Stark says Autodesk wants to make sure AutoCAD remains a vibrant product not only for its 9 million current users, but for new generations of designers coming out of college. Scanning capabilities and photogrammetry are only two of the new interesting applications and functionalities Autodesk is exploring as it continues to invest in the things customers care about.

Talk to Us!

If you want to influence development of Autodesk® products, you need to know about myfeedback.autodesk.com. Shaan Hurley, Platform Technology Evangelist at Autodesk, describes all the ways customers can communicate with product design teams.

What’s Autodesk Doing on Easter Island?

Easter Island/Rapa Nui is the most remote inhabited island in the world, but it’s inundated with tourists. What’s a community to do? Pete Kelsey, Key Accounts Technical Manager at Autodesk, has made it a labor of love to help Rapa Nui cope. Using some fancy GPS equipment, laser scanning technology, and, of course, Autodesk software, Kelsey has produced a 3D survey grade model of the island that planners can use to assess development impacts.

Drawings with Soul

It’s easy to use, it’s free with AutoCAD®, and it gives your drawings that hand-drawn look. What’s not to like? Ged Trias of the Larsen & Darby Group talks about using Autodesk® Impression to draw your customers into the design process. Trias says that when you show customers a crisp, finished drawing or a 3D render, they feel less comfortable asking for changes. Impression enables you to give your drawings a looser, sketchier look that customers just want to draw on.

Neoscape’s Recipe for Excellence

Passion for what they do, sticking to a disciplined creative process, communicating and collaborating with customers, and a commitment to quality. Nils Norgren shares his secrets of success from Neoscape, one of the world’s leading architectural visualization firms.

Seeing the Future of Digital Design

What’s on the horizon in digital design? Jim Balding of WATG talks about both the next step in digital design and what designers are looking for in the future. Hot topics: Better ways to display, cloud computing to enable collaboration, and algorithmic design.

Getting Personal with Customers at AU

Kevin Breslin of Avatech Solutions talks about putting faces to names at AU. Reporting from their signature event at the exclusive TAO nightclub in Las Vegas, NV, Kevin details the ways Avatech connects with its customers at AU.

NZ’s ArcHaus Combines Revit and 3ds Max to Win the Contract

The building modeling capabilities of AutoCAD® Revit® and the presentation WOW of Autodesk 3ds Max® proved to be a winning combination for New Zealand firm ArcHaus. Associate Jason Howden talks about how Autodesk software enables his firm to get their designs out in hours instead of weeks while avoiding expensive showroom models.

Revving Revit and the Promise of BIM

“We no longer have to imagine. With BIM, we can see it as we design,” says Jay Zallen, senior virtual design and construction manager for Gensler. “Virtual tools make the whole industry more productive.” Zallen outlines his several AU Unplugged sessions, including a redesign session for AutoCAD® Revit®.

Eddy Krygel: Using BIM for Sustainable Building Design

HNTB sustainability specialist Eddy Krygel talks about using BIM to design high-performance buildings. With Autodesk BIM technology, designers can combine several models (daylight, energy, indoor air quality) into one, using iterative design to create buildings that are both sustainable and appropriate for their environments.