Monday 5 December 2011

AU 2011 Run Down


What an event this was! Full of very interesting classes and meeting lot of experts face to face. Amazing! Here is my run down of events as it happened.


AU Day 0-Monday

After finishing breakfast at Grand Lux I attended a class "Building Trends: How BIM Is Changing Business Practices in Building Design" by Erin Hoffer. It was very interesting session, useful to know the current state of BIM adoption in AEC industry. Straight after that session I headed for a lunch at an Italian restaurent on the second floor where I met Woods Bagot Colleagues Fergus, Scott, and Franz. After lunch I went for Revit Architecture 2012 certification.
There was a very long queue for AEC certification so that they had to extend openiing time until 7.30pm. I managed to sit for both Associate and Professional exams for Revit Archtiecture 2012 and passed both of them. Hurray!!
In the evening at La Scena lounge I spent some time chatting up with Jose Fando from Andekan and few other friends from the UK. Jose reminded me of the RTCUSA abstract dedline, which I was planning to submit an extract for.


AU DAy 1-Tuesday

After breakfast I headed straight to General Keynote Session. It was a fantastic welcome address by Autodesk CTO Jeff Kowalski and others. If you missed it I strogly reccomend reading it.    
After keynote session I went to a class "Seeing Data and More: The Analysis Visualization Framework in the Autodesk® Revit® API" - by Matt Masson (ImaginIt). Very interesting class, very well presented as well. I am definitely gonig to dabble into AVF to test some apps. 
After lunch, I attended Showcasing Architectural Models by Matthew Dillon. It was an average class for my taste. After that class I headed straight to Jason Grant and David Light's class - Graphics that "POP". did it pop? definitely. It was very interesting and useful class. Lot of useful techniques to make graphics more appealing in Revit. Afterwards, I went to a class by Mike Massey - All Systems Go with Autodesk® Revit® Architecture 2012. In between classes I submitted my RTC-USA abstract. Fingers crossed!! 

With this I ended my first day at 6.30pm and went to Exhibit Hall for International Community Reception and visited most of the booths. There were lot of products on 'cloud' and 'BIM'. 
BIM and cloud seemed to be the theme of AU2011. After some time I headed to La Scena lounge to catch up with few friends and then off to bed. It was a long and busy day with lot of information to digest.


AU DAy 2-Wednsday


Day 2 started with a very 'energetic (entertaining)' class by William Lopez Campo & Zack Kron - "You Want to Model a What? Converting Real Projects into Parametric Relationships". As usual, they came up with some unique content/technique - 10/10. My second class was by Dr. Robert Aish -  DesignScript: Associative, Parametric, and Computational Design within AutoCAD®. What a class it was! for me this was the highlight of AU2011, 10/10. Very powerful scripting language. Look forward to get my hands on this scripting language. At the end of the class I met Dave Fano from Case and during our conversation he pointed out to Woods Bagot new arrival Shane Burger,Design Technology Director. I then introduced myself to Shane and headed for lunch together, where we met Scott and Fergus. This was our first meeting with Shane Burger so we ended up introducing ourselves. Shane Burger is definitely a great addition to our existing DT force. I look forward to working with him.



After lunch I went into a class by Jeremy Tammik - Autodesk® Revit® 2012 API Extensible Storage. But after intial 15 mins I realised that it was not useful for me so  I jumped out of it and went into a class "BIM and Gaming Engines: How We Present 4D Models Using Our Design Suite and Gaming Engines" - by Nicholas Broadbent. Very interesting class to see how Revit, 3Ds Max, Navisworks etc are used to generate 4D sequencing. Top end class. I highly reccomend cheking the class material, if you missed this one. I then attended a class "Beyond Massing: Conceptual Design Tools in Autodesk® Revit® Architecture 2012" - by Dave Fano (Case). It was funny to see Dave struggling to host a reference point on a reference spline. It was an average class, nothing new that I didn't know. It was then time for the last 'energetic' class of the day. Autodesk® Project Vasari: Playing with Energetic Supermodels - by Matt Jezyk & Zack Kron. It was truely energetic, 10/10. I highly reccommend downloading class material and reviewing it. Top job Matt!
I then headed to Exhibit Hall and spend some time with Shawn Bryant and other AUGI members at AUGI annual beer bust. And finally day ended at La Scena lounge with few drinks with Fergus, Franz, Patrick, and Jose.


AU DAy 3-Thursday


I started with a class "Autodesk® Revit® Links, Groups, and Documentation: How to Make It Really Work!" - by Aaron Maller. As usual, Aaron's class was a top end class with lots of useful techniques, 10/10. I then headed in to a class " Way Beyond Project Templates: Applying Standards for Efficient Document Production in Autodesk® Revit®" - by David Spehar and Robert Manna. It wasn't anything new that I hadn't seen before but it was very useful to see the best practice in Revit project management. After lunch I went out for some shopping for my family and ended up spending bit more time then planned so I missed a class "Autodesk® Revit®, Contractors, Site Logistics, and Construction Scheduling for the Real World" - by Aaron Maller. Aaron has kindly emailed his class materials so I am gonig to review it as soon as I can. After that class I headed to a class "Logically Beautiful! A Computational Approach to Iterative Design and Design Optimization in Autodesk® Revit®" - by Vincent Poon. It was an average class. Nothing new for me. I then headed to a class "The Interior Side of Revit: Documenting Interior Design Projects with Autodesk® Revit®" - by Scott Brown and Damian Serrano. Top end class, material and presentation - 10/10. With this class we ended our 4 days AU marathon. It was time for the AU Mixer. I spent some time chatting up with Jose/Gary (Andekan), Paul Oakley, Patrick and others.
On Friday, we had Woods Bagot Design Technology group meeting at Aquaknox in the morning. My flight was at 16.30pm so I headed to the airport at 14.30pm. The AU networking wasn't ended yet! I met Lee Zebedee from Ramboll at the airport and chatted about how they use laser scanning and point cloud data in Revit. Anyone who attended UK BIMShow LIVE would have seen his presentation. We may see him on AU stage in the future.

This concludes AU2011 for me. Following are my top 10 AU2011 classes, in order. 






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