Autodesk Labs is the place to visit to see innovative new Autodesk technologies while they’re still in an early conceptual stage.  Products and technologies are developed that are relevant to customers designing in architecture, manufacturing, civil engineering, movies, games or other industries.  Through an online forum, Autodesk Labs provides the public with free, early access to prototypes, technology previews, and experimental web services.  The best way to learn about Autodesk Labs is to start experimenting yourself.  Try out their free technology previews, test them and let them know what you think.  Today, I would like to focus on a few projects that I find interesting for our customers in education – Project Vasari and Project Photofly.

Project Vasari is a design tool for creating building concepts.  Vasari also adds integrated analysis for energy and carbon, providing design insight where the most important design decisions are made. Project Vasari design data can then be imported into the Autodesk Revit when it’s time to move the design to production.  Project Vasari is focused on conceptual building design using both geometric and parametric modeling.  It supports performance-based design via integrated energy modeling and analysis features.  Here’s a technology preview of Project Vasari…

Project Photofly is technology that allows anyone with a digital camera to create near accurate models from photographs by harnessing the power of cloud computing to translate photos into detailed 3D models.  To use the power of Project Photofly, a standalone application for Windows called the “Photo Scene Editor” has been developed.  This application lets you submit your photographs to the Project Photofly web service and view the returned Photo Scenes. You can save your Photo Scenes and export the computed 3D points, cameras, and 3D geometry in various CAD formats.  The models can then be manipulated by Autodesk design software such as AutoCAD, Maya, 3DS Max or Inventor.  Here is a technology preview of Project Photofly…

These new technology previews are now available as a free download and trial on Autodesk Labs.

Author: Jeff Mazzone