Autodesk CEO Carl Bass Describes Key Technology Initiatives

"It's clear the world is changing, and the way we do our work is changing."

That's how Autodesk President and CEO Carl Bass kicked off the General Session at Autodesk University 2009, noting design engineers are facing tremendous global competition and pressure to work more efficiently.

More than 5,500 people are attending this year's three-day, live event, along with 16,000 people from around the world who logged in to the first-ever Virtual Autodesk University.

"What can you do to stay competitive?" Bass asked the audience who had presumably come to do just that – by attending classes and hands-on training sessions from Autodesk instructors and experts. He noted although one of the best ways to be competitive is through the use of technology, technologies go along a continuum – from impossible to impractical to possible to expected to required – and the right timing is the critical factor. Too early, it's impractical, too late and, well, you've missed the boat. "If you think about it, the Newton was ahead of its time. And everybody knows about the Prius, but who remembers the EV1?" he asked. Get the timing just right, though, and you've hit the sweet spot.

Bass noted CAD, too, traveled along this continuum from impossible in the 1960s to now 2D and even 3D being required. He outlined five new capabilities that are now moving into the sweet spot, aided in large part by the availability of cheap, web-based computing that gives people access to their data virtually anywhere, anytime and the complementary development efforts at Autodesk.

"This kind of technology shift happens only every 10 to 20 years and today it is having a major impact on how design work is done," he said.

The first capability Bass discussed is Exploration. "Design is all about looking at alternatives, but it often isn't very practical. When people have to spend days or weeks exploring different solutions they won't explore so many," Bass said. With the ability to embed information, for example regarding the manufacturability of various parts, into the geometry, he said new tools are giving engineers constant feedback on what actually can be built, winnowing down the number of options to a credible few for them to focus on.

A second capability is Analysis, which Bass noted should be happening at every stage of the design process from concept to finished product. But it is often too onerous. New tools, he added, will help engineers generate and analyze hundreds of options in the same amount of time that it now takes to analyze just one. "Ongoing analysis with real-time feedback about different aspects of the design will allow the user to explore the design space freely while respecting the parameters of the process," he said.

Storytelling is a third capability, said Bass, noting there is a story behind every creation and that visualization helps companies and design teams win support for a project. "We at Autodesk are researching new ways to help project teams by leveraging things like character technology developed for games and simulations that help engineers understand how people interact with a design," he said.

A fourth and increasingly important capability is Access, which Bass says Autodesk is committed to and is actively developing products for a range of platforms so that users can access their data and projects in multiple ways. "We've released several products for the Mac and are working on quite a few more," he said. Notwithstanding the positive reaction from Apple fans, Bass said a nice side benefit of developing for multiple platforms is that you wind up with much more flexible technology that can be employed in new environments.

Bass also described an initiative called Project Twitch, for which Autodesk is testing remote delivery of applications like AutoCAD and Inventor over the web. "I am talking about the exact same software you are used to running on your desktop machine, but now it's running on a machine that's much more powerful." He noted users can test drive it at Autodesk Labs online.

Autodesk also has extended its Sketchbook digital sketch product with an app for the iPhone called Sketchbook Mobile. Bass says the $3 app has been downloaded 1 million times, and people are using it in some unbelievably cool ways. "People used to sketch on napkins because they were readily available; now carrying around tools like this allows you to make a digital sketch anytime, anywhere and take these sketches and integrate them directly into your workflow," he said.

Collaboration is the fifth and final capability, and Bass concluded by saying web-based computing opens up entirely new ways for engineers to work together, from enabling markups and edits that are shared with everyone in real time to multiple people marking up and editing at the same time. If that sounds slightly nightmarish, it does have the benefit of eliminating all those multiple versions of designs floating around.

Of course, data must also be shared, and Autodesk is working on ways to route the information to all participants without the need for extra manual steps. Just in the way that Facebook, Twitter and other social networking tools allow people to selectively follow what other people are doing that is of relevance, Autodesk is exploring this feature for applications in the design space. "Say you change something in your design and a message goes out to all team members automatically," said Bass. "What this allows you to do is to focus on what really matters, which is better design."