Last week, I attended and presented at Autodesk University 2024 in San Diego, California. I will share the highlights of that busy but fun week in this post!
As with most of my "Recap" posts, the photos are all in chronological order (except for the Venue photos). I think this is a fun way to share the highlights of how I experienced the conference:)
--> Click to enlarge any photo. <--
Venue
The conference of approximately 12,000 people was hosted at the San Diego Convention Center in San Diego, California. Fun fact: San Diego is the 8th largest city in the US (I live in San Antonio, Texas, which is the 7th largest).
There was a large community zone with legos, puppies, and more. The two Lego pics are from the first day and the last day.
Monday
I arrived a day early to attend the 5-hour Autodesk CAB (Customer Advisory Board). Photos here with Revit development leadership, Harlan Brumm and Ian Molloy.
Selfie with Jens Majdal Kaarsholm from BIG and Retha Swanepoel from Foster + Partners.
Monday evening was the speaker's party!
Tuesday
The annual OK + LF Design Technology meetup... since it has happened two years in a row, it is an annual thing:) My colleague and co-presenter Miguel Elizardo and I met with friends from Olson Kundig... Gavin Argo and Bonnie James.
Here are a few interesting things from the keynote...
Loading a project specification into ACC and using Autodesk AI to search it... where the results also list references to the source.
At the same time, Autodesk explicitly said they would (it sounded like, by default) train their AI on all of their customer's data (with an option to opt-out, no opt-in if I understood correctly).
Autodesk Bernini is a sketch to 3D model beta project...
Autodesk created (or adopted?) a method of transparency reporting for any AI features within their various products. Click to enlarge image.
12k people in one room!
In the exhibit hall...
The Dell booth featured an Enscape model of the Lake|Flato office! The small computer shown below the display has an impressive NVIDIA 4000 Ada SFF (Small Form Factor) GPU that is super impressive (we have been testing it)... and only requires a 300W power supply.
Related: Dell created a video featuring Lake|Flato's technology strategy which you can read about here.
Chaos showed up big!
I had a chance to chat in person with Stephan Sieber, the new CEO at Chaos.
I also chatted with Mortiz Luck (Enscape founder) and Christian Lang (former Chaos CEO). I had coffee with Moritz one morning and dinner with Christian (see photos below).
Lunch!
David Beach gave a great presentation on teaching Forma to his students.
Arup reported on their efforts to perform and track LCA on all of their projects.
There was a great presentation in the expo hall on C.Scale within Forma by Jack Rusk (EHDD/C.Scale), Ellis Herman (Autodesk), and Jay Burtwistle from Stantec.
Also, at the end of the day in the Expo hall, I attended the Forma Design Slam... a live design competition between two teams. Hosted by Cesar Escalante and Zach Kron from Autodesk.
Contestants:
The day closed out, having dinner with my friends from Chaos.
Phil Read and Joseph Kim...
Miguel and Roderick Bates...
Wednesday
Day two keynote... turns out the Theater Talks space with lounge-type seating streams the keynote live from the large room with 12k people in it. This was a nice place to view the keynote from:)
The keynote featured an electric car being designed in Fusion by a firm from India. I checked out the prototype in the Expo hall and met Vilas Deshpande, Co-Founder and COO of Wayve Mobility.
The Forma booth in the Expo Hall...
My friends from Dell (Ken Flannigan and Matt Allard) and folks from NVIDIA and Intel gave a good talk on the opportunities to leverage AI locally rather than exclusively in the cloud.
A great session featuring women in BIM, Code Queens and Data Divas.
AS3342 Panelists:
- Argelia Barcena, Gensler
- Viveka Devadas, Autodesk
- Mor Katz, AI Researcher at Autodesk
- Eileen Li, Autodesk
- Rina Sahay, Abonmarche
At an early evening mixer, Miguel and I met the inverter of Forma (previously Spacemaker)... Carl Christensen. (Nice Photo bomb, Thesla).
Kevin Walsh is being recognized as the winner of the Forma Design Slam from he night before at the Forma mixer!
A lunch I missed, because I was presenting a webinar to AIA California from my hotel room (yes, during AU, lol)... but somehow managed to arrive just as they were taking a selfie and about to leave!!!
This photo represented three Autodesk customers and Revit product owner Steve Crotty (right) who participate in regular Sprint reviews on new features being developed. Jeff Millet, Goody Clancy (left), Bethany Pritchard, VMDO.
Thursday
This was a busy day... both of my sessions were on this day and separated by a 30-minute break!
The first session I attended was very interesting. It was on using AI for timber connections. I was surprised at how well-developed the concept was.
Here are several examples of typing prompts and meaningful things happening... not just within Revit, but using Robot structural analysis directly and in-directly, as well as opening other documents for review.
Kevin Walsh, from Nikken Sekkei in Tokyo, gave a great follow up presentation from last year.
Packed room... I started out sitting on the floor (next to Jack Rusk, from C.Scale).
Kevin submitted a proposal for AU with the goal of showing how to calculate complex shapes in Forma using the integrated C.Scae engine. The problem was it was not technically possible at the time, and only native Forma geometry was supported. Kevin has some ideas on how it might be accomplished (as identified in the image below).
Turns out those methods did not work well or at all. As luck would have it, Dynamo for Forma was released, and with a few custom tweaks to Dynamo just for Kevin (lol) he has some amazing stuff to show at AU!!!
He created a custom GPT to help interpret the embodied carbon results... link available within his handout.
He highlighted the ultimate edge case... his firm has designed the building with the world's largest cantilever...
Not supported... because C.Scale only contains real-world data and there is nothing to compare this unique project to!
And just like Mario Cart, the combination of your choices uniquely impacts the end product's performance.
My first session...
EDU3099 - Teaching Autodesk Forma and Outcome-Based Design: A New Paradigm Versus Yet Another Set of Tools
I presented with Christoph Becker from Autodesk...
In the class we had two Revit legends:) Scott Brown and Steve Stafford who both started using Revit at version 1.0.
Sebastien Dubois won a copy of my book Interior Design Using Autodesk Revit 2025. I also gave away a copy of Residential Design Using Autodesk Revit 2025.
My session session... 30 minutes after the previous one!
AS2996 - Advancing Sustainable Architecture: Lake|Flato's Journey with Autodesk Forma
I co-presented with...
- Miguel Elizardo, Design Technologist at Lake|Flkato
- Andrés D'Silva, Autodesk
Right after our last session, we headed to the meetup spot for an Autodesk Forma-hosted tour of UC San Diego’s Geisel Library.
Daniel Gameiro from Autodesk leads the tour... Liza Biba also from Autodesk next to him in this first photo.
The AU closing party...
Autodesk closed off the entire Gaslamp district for the 12k-person event. Many of the connecting restaurants were open and everything (drinks and food) were free (or included with registration is a better way to put it).
My friend Joseph Kim gave me a behind-the-scenes tour of The Escape Game location (right within the party area) that he designed. He used to work directly for the company and now he designs their stores across the country!
He was attending the conference supporting Chaos as an Influencer. He and I last met up in Bulgaria and the Chaos Invluncery event I wrote about here.
Counting Crows are performing live...
Voltar was a real guy... a little creepy:)
Image below from AU photobooth by Snapbar... it looks like AI added my watch AND my Disney magic band. lol
"Your generated avatars are a blend of your photo and AI creativity, offering a unique style that may differ from expectations and reality. Try to embrace these interpretations as an artistic expression, not an exact replica."
Here is Gavin getting his photo taken for his "bobblehead" image:)
Next year the conference will be in Nashville. If you have never been, it is worth considering for the session, networking, expo hall... not to mention the puppies:)
For BIM Chapters updates, follow @DanStine_MN on Twitter or connect on LinkedIn
Lighting design professionals: check out my Revit & ElumTools training https://bit.ly/3NJjhCV
