It's the end of AU 2010 and I'm sitting at the Vegas airport sipping on a strawberry smoothie from Starbucks. I'm completely exhausted and my foot is throbbing from a blister I got last night, time to relax and reflect on the experience.
The good:
- Free food and drinks everywhere - you seriously could gain a lot of weight here - I'm balancing the laptop on top of my mountianous belly right now and not my lap.
- Getting to know my other DIALOG colleagues, which probably wouldn't happen otherwise.
- I'm amazed how Autodesk can manage 6000+ attendees - breakfast, lunch, dinner, all the sessions. It's quite the organizational feat!
The bad:
- Meeting up at 6:30 every morning.
- Going to bed at midnight - not a bad thing, but see above.
- Filling out surveys by hand - chisel and stone anyone?... seriously, everyone should have scanners.
- I seriously can't think of anything else.
Thank you DIALOG, thank you Autodesk, good-bye Vegas.
Friday, December 3, 2010
Thursday, December 2, 2010
It's Over
Exhausting.
Some super cool stuff. When they said complex per instance data, I wasn't expecting being able to embed an entire file structure of files within a Revit element. I don't know we would use it directly, but it does give me some good ideas.
The session on SharePoint integration was exactly what I expected. The technology is still in it's infancy, but, given time, it could develop into something really quite useful.
It was good meeting people from the other studios. I had a ton of fun. Too much walking. And I can't believe it is all over.
Some super cool stuff. When they said complex per instance data, I wasn't expecting being able to embed an entire file structure of files within a Revit element. I don't know we would use it directly, but it does give me some good ideas.
The session on SharePoint integration was exactly what I expected. The technology is still in it's infancy, but, given time, it could develop into something really quite useful.
It was good meeting people from the other studios. I had a ton of fun. Too much walking. And I can't believe it is all over.
Contrary to popular belief no I have not gotten married, yet...
Today was the last day of AU, it went by fast and I will miss the free mystery food(fajitas?) and drink. My first session today was by far the best, it was about design efficiency. The class involved using basic and complex REVIT models to do load calcs and had alot of tips for matching our room/space names to the Architectural model. All that should work out to a pretty decent how to/class by me.
I just got back from Freemont ave which was amazing, now its time for some food and Vegas novelties... Wish me luck!
Andrew
Today was the last day of AU, it went by fast and I will miss the free mystery food(fajitas?) and drink. My first session today was by far the best, it was about design efficiency. The class involved using basic and complex REVIT models to do load calcs and had alot of tips for matching our room/space names to the Architectural model. All that should work out to a pretty decent how to/class by me.
I just got back from Freemont ave which was amazing, now its time for some food and Vegas novelties... Wish me luck!
Andrew
No tiger, no wedding bells, no energy!
I just finished my last class of Autodesk University 2010 and i can honestly say that i am exhausted! Waking up at 5:45 am and having classes from 8:30 t0 5:30 every day really takes a toll on you! I'm looking forward to relaxing and going to sleep. Yes, this is Vegas and there a million things i could be doing here, but i honestly don't have the energy to even walk! All in all though, AU 2010 was a great experience. I managed to learn some things and i also got a chance to get to know some of my fellow coworkers from the other studios.
Things i will miss at AU2010:
1) All the good free food.
2) All the good free drink
3) My amazing hotel room
4) Chuck Norris
5) Andrew saying, "that's gnarly"
6) Andrew's quest for the definitive Vegas tourist T-shirt
7) Mike sending me a BBM message saying, "where are you guys" when we're standing right behind him.
Things i will not miss about AU2010:
1) All the good free food (i ate waaaaaay too much at every meal and snack time)
2) All the walking (seriously, your feet are killing at the end of each day and i'm wearing super comfortable sneakers)
3) Having to wear your conference ID badge around your neck
4) Filling out forms at the display booths in the exhibit hall just to get free stuff
5) Chuck Norris
So with that, i say good by to Las Vegas and AU2010. It was a great experience!
"Reggie has left the building" Vivaaaaaaa Las Vegas!
For those of you too young to remember that, it's an Elvis reference.
Day 3 Update
The last day of classes started off quite well. The first class, on handling finish plans in Revit, was quite interesting. The instructor came up with the idea of using areas to create floor finish plans. Quite interesting really...all the power of splitting faces and painting. Materials, but with none of the hassle of nesting your split lines.
The second class was fantastic. At Perkins + Will, they use server class machines with terminal server plus to provide high powered Revit capabilities for thei users. A 12 processor, each processor either dual or quad core, server with 64 gigs of RAM can host, according to their testing, up to 12-14 users. The benefit, the RAM is dynamically allocated to the processes, users, which need it. So if you are doing something RAM intensive in Revit, if you need 16 or more gigs of RAM to do it efficiently, you get it.
They also came up with a way of evaluating the potential size and complexity of a model and of determining how many people are needed on the project. Interesting stuff. They are also actively studying the impact of what they call lonely BIM, some involvement of stakeholders, and social BIM, heavy active involvement of all stakeholders throughout the process, on key portions of the design process. The findings are quite staggering.
My next class is starting...time to go.
The second class was fantastic. At Perkins + Will, they use server class machines with terminal server plus to provide high powered Revit capabilities for thei users. A 12 processor, each processor either dual or quad core, server with 64 gigs of RAM can host, according to their testing, up to 12-14 users. The benefit, the RAM is dynamically allocated to the processes, users, which need it. So if you are doing something RAM intensive in Revit, if you need 16 or more gigs of RAM to do it efficiently, you get it.
They also came up with a way of evaluating the potential size and complexity of a model and of determining how many people are needed on the project. Interesting stuff. They are also actively studying the impact of what they call lonely BIM, some involvement of stakeholders, and social BIM, heavy active involvement of all stakeholders throughout the process, on key portions of the design process. The findings are quite staggering.
My next class is starting...time to go.
Day 2 Review
My afternoon sessions were pretty good, with one exception. The presenter crashed and burned. It has happened to me, so I know, first of all, how easily it can happen, and secondly, just how much it sucks to be "that guy".
The presentation on level of detail was particularly good. I think Reggie and I will have some interesting discussions around how we can put that information to good use.
At the evening event, I ran into several people I have not seen in almost 10 years. People who have been around the Calgary and Edmonton offices for some time would be interested to hear that Stephen Jabs is a presenter this year.
I also ran into some of the top rated AU instructors, many of whom I have had the opportunity to meet at other events, like Destination Desktop. Dave Espinosa Aguilar is always interesting to talk to, as is Matt Murphy.
All in all, a good day.
The presentation on level of detail was particularly good. I think Reggie and I will have some interesting discussions around how we can put that information to good use.
At the evening event, I ran into several people I have not seen in almost 10 years. People who have been around the Calgary and Edmonton offices for some time would be interested to hear that Stephen Jabs is a presenter this year.
I also ran into some of the top rated AU instructors, many of whom I have had the opportunity to meet at other events, like Destination Desktop. Dave Espinosa Aguilar is always interesting to talk to, as is Matt Murphy.
All in all, a good day.
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