The Drought in Posting

I know, I know.... I need to post more...

Part of my excuse for not posting right now is that I'm writing posts that can't be released yet. I always enjoy posting about the new products (Autodesk 2010 products in this case) as soon as it's possible - but I think we're still at least a month and a half away from the "press-embargo" on posting.

I've worked with a variety of early versions - so I'm hopeful I'll have a bunch of stuff queued up to post in the March timeframe.

In the meantime, I'm going to start posting some of my content from the last Autodesk University, for those who couldn't make it.

-Matt

Autodesk University 2008 is over with...

Well - I feel guilty... They gave me an "AU Blogger" ribbon for my badge - and then I didn't manage to Blog during the show. It was an incredibly busy week, including:

- Setup of the Altogether Smarter Challenge stations for Avatech (I'd like to throttle somebody at UPS who thinks that 11/21 to 12/1 constitutes 3-day delivery)...

- The Autodesk Developer Network DevDays conference... for my money, the best day of guidance you can get from Autodesk... Although this year there was a little bit more talk and a little bit less specifics than in previous years.

- We launched our new BIMreview application, which helps check your Revit models for standards and practices, to great feedback from Revit users! The crowd was 3-deep for most of the open exhibit time.

- I did my first solo class - CP315-4: Getting Down to BIM, Advanced Revit API to a crowd of perhaps 60-80 people. That went well (the contents should be posted on the AU site this week... after a little while there, I'll release it more broadly).

All in all, though - an incredibly busy week. And I only got to see about 1/3 of the sessions I had wanted to see.

While I can't share the specifics (much of the ADN stuff is under NDA), my general impressions of what's to come is that:

• Autodesk continues to invest significantly in AutoCAD, even around 3D and other topics which you might imagine that they would delegate to the vertical products.
• Autodesk continues to find ways to leverage the Media & Entertainment division software into the Design software side of things.

There's not much more I can say until whenever they free us from the blackout...

Oh yeah - and I think most people know it, but 2010 WILL be a new DWG format, and will break many of the existing applications out there (they plan this - only once every three years).

Welcome two new Autodesk development blogs

I think it's always a good thing when a knowledge-based community gets bigger and the sources more prolific.

So I'd like to point out two new blogs by Autodesk development experts:

• The Building Coder by Jeremy Tammik, focusing on Revit development
• Mod the Machine by Brian Ekins, focusing on Inventor development

I'm a veteran of a good number of training classes and seminars of both of these gentlemen, and they should be a great addition to the CAD development blogging ecosystem.

If you ever get a chance to meet Brian, you have to ask him to show you one of the more simple but mind-bending demos... I spent years looking at Inventor drawings of 3D parts and assemblies - and one day he shows me a simple application which rotates the view of the drawing in 3D (normally you can only pan/zoom in a "2D" drawing). But it turns out that the "2D" drawing was 3D all along - all of a sudden you could see the 3D parts that were "behind" the 2D drawing, titleblock, etc. Very weird and somewhat psychodelic for people in the CAD world, at least (CAD drawings are supposed to be like digital paper, right?).

-Matt

Argh. I don't understand the rules!

Todd wrote:
"Time to get another post up there buddy. I'm waiting to hear exciting news about customizing Revit 2009. "

This is my favorite time of year. The new product release season is when I have the most interesting stuff to say about what's coming in the next release - and what it means for you.

That said - there is an aspect of this which always drives me bananas - timing. Depending on what you read and who you ask, I am allowed to start talking about the 2009 products somewhere between February 12th and April 2nd - with potential penalties if I talk too early.

February 12th - Autodesk's World Press Day, where they publicize the products.
March 25th - Marketing Launch Day (where resellers and ISVs are supposed to be able to do outbound marketing communication about 2009 - prior to that, you're only supposed to be responding to inbound queries...)

Autodesk Developer Network publishes one set of guidelines - the beta testing agreement says something else entirely about the dates where you can discuss it, and when I ping Product Managers directly on the topic - it all seems different.

It's obvious that the world has changed though - people started blogging about all the new features instantly... Maybe that's OK? Maybe that's just how the world works today in the blog-centric world... But as someone who would prefer not to be shut out of future beta testing - it's frustrating to be told "wait until April 2nd"... At the same time, no one that I talk to seems sure - so it's all still being worked out.

So anyway - I've got a raft of posts all queued up and ready to go - but I'm waiting for the go ahead to be able to post them...

-Matt