Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1591
January 2009 38
motorcycle was actually started, and this
reporter does have her gullible moments.
What's New
Progress doesn't stop, it speeds up.
Kowalski expanded on the idea of put-
ting the computer to work. "Each year," he
said, "more computer power is produced
than the sum of all that has come before."
Kowalski told the audience that
"the future
is coming more quickly than we ever real-
ized." Building on the iterative computing
idea, he asked, "Why does the computer
make us tell it what to do, as if its resources
were valuable and ours are not?"
Kowalski built on the idea of iterative
design and provided a sneak peek of what
Inventor might be able to do, and maybe
even pretty soon at that. He demonstrated
direct modeling being used on an Inven-
tor model. To digress a minute, the next
big revolution in mechanical design is an
old revolution—direct modeling, which is
a friendlier approach, letting designers
try
out diff erent ideas interactively. Its opposite
is constraint-based modeling, which ensures
that a manufacturable design is produced
but is restrictive when one just wants to try
out some ideas. Autodesk demonstrated the
ways in which both approaches could be
used together on the Autodesk University
stage, and it's an idea that is going to keep
Inventor current with its competitors.
e idea of using the computer to gen-
erate ideas and alternatives is another as-
pect of the broadening concept of analysis,
as Autodesk is putting it to work. On one
hand, there's traditional analysis that takes
into consideration variables such as stresses,
materials, heat resistance, and aerodynamics,
and demonstrates areas that need attention,
giving the designer an idea of where to try
out alternatives. e point to iterative design
is that the designer quickly generate alterna-
tives. e concepts can be used
together as
well as separately to
fi nd the best design or,
better yet, fi nd a brand-new idea that hasn't
been tried before.
Kowalski showed off other ideas that are
being tried out in the labs, including com-
puting in the cloud with Project Showroom,
which Autodesk has just made available on
its Autodesk Labs Web site. It's a tool an in-
terior designer might use to show a kitchen
and change material fi nishes interactively
so the customer can see what a wood fl oor
might look like versus tile, or white cabinets
versus black. ere are processors out in the
cloud "beavering" away at processing while
the desktop client updates relatively quickly.
Autodesk describes it as "borrowing."
Autodesk suggests that users could rent the
use of additional processors as they need it.
Both Kowalski and Bass in a later interview
made it clear that this isn't a new business for
Autodesk; rather, Auto desk would team up
with a company that is off ering serverfarm
access. Amazon, for instance, is developing
The DesignSlam gave designers 20 minutes to produce a concept while rock music blares, the
audience shouts, and judges mill around. Here, the challenge was to rethink the watch using
AutoSketch and/or Studio. Brothers Rich and Glenn Walters of Brooks Stevens Design seemed to
totally enjoy the experience.
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