Computer Graphics World

January 2009 39 cloud computing as a lucrative hobby for all its server processors. Google, too, has a bunch of servers that conceivably have some spare time. e idea is that companies in the information business are likely to have to build out huge server capacity for peak times, but that capacity might not be used to the fullest. ere are server cores available for other work. If you think about it, human proces- sors—our little or big brains, as the case may be—are subject to the same challenge as semiconductors, both CPUs and GPUs. ere reaches a point at which one just can't do it all by thinking harder or work- ing faster. Semiconductors hit the wall, and we get smoke coming out our ears. So the answer in the case of semiconductors is to gang up processors to do a task, and it's the same for us—we'll gang up semiconduc- tors to try out more ideas for us, or we can gang up brains for better collaboration. The Next Generation is is a trend happening throughout the digital content creation world as the industry tries to make the shift from tools that force us to adapt to them, to tools that adapt to our tasks and actually expand our capabilities. In a way, the fi rst step was really just getting the process of design and documentation into the computer. Now, we're ready for more. Bass said two things during Autodesk University that pointed to the ways in which the company would like to change the pro- cess of design. He said, "I don't understand why a $50 game should look better than a design product costing thousands of dol- lars." And, talking about interfaces, he said "the napkin just accepts the pencil." Much of the work going on in the labs is to try and make the software attractive and enticing to play with, and the process as simple as trying out ideas with a pencil and paper. Along those same lines, Autodesk has ac- quired the aptly named Mudbox, an interac- tive modeling tool that lets users push, pull, carve, and cut a model into shape, just like a sculptor might do. Well, Autodesk, being the company it has become, isn't likely to reserve that technology for entertainment content creation when it could be so useful for 3D design and surface design. Demonstrations of Mudbox at the Auto desk Labs booth on the exhibit fl oor showed the software paired with an HP multi-touch display so that the user could easily pull and push a model into place using both hands. In addition, Au- todesk prompts the following: Why couldn't multi-touch be used to make navigating in 3D with tools, like Inventor, much easier. And all this discussion seems to leave Auto- CAD, Autodesk's stalwart CAD tool that is the most widely used CAD tool in the world, lying neglected in the dust. It's not, so we're told. Autodesk wants to push Auto- CAD forward into the new millennium, to use all the ideas being kicked around, such as freeform design, dynamic interaction, and iterative design, to make it a more useful tool for the fi rst step in getting into a buildable, or manufacturable, form. In a casual conver- sation, Luc Robert from the RealViz team, said, "Our job now is to make AutoCAD cool again." Now that might be a big job, but it is kind of "job one" for Autodesk. As Autodesk University so clearly dem- onstrated, the company's real power base is founded on those 10,000 or so people ex- citedly chattering in the halls at AU. ey fi lled the classrooms where new techniques were taught and new products were dem- onstrated. ey're hungry for tools that can help them do more. is year, Autodesk seemed to be saying that it's not a matter of moving people off AutoCAD and onto new platforms, but rather to move AutoCAD forward so it's a vehicle allowing its users to do more and, along the way, incorporate more tools into their tool set. ■ Kathleen Maher is a contributing editor to CGW, a senior analyst at Jon Peddie Research, a Tiburon, CA- based consultancy specializing in graphics and multime- dia, and editor in chief of JPR's "TechWatch." 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