Autodesk University - Day One AUGI Meeting

I'm finding it a bit tough to write consistently while here at AU this year because there's simply so much going on that there's very little opportunity for down time. I also occassionally lose my wireless connection while I'm trying to post. But all-in-all, I must say that so far this is the best run AU ever.

This evening was the AUGI General Meeting, followed by the annual Beer Blast, which coincides with the opening of the exhibit hall.


Lynn Allen opened the AUGI General Meeting and introduced the current AUGI president.

As part of the meeting, my CAD Camp Experience video was shown. I'll eventually have that video available online on the CAD Camp website.


Autodesk CEO Carl Bass also showed up to say a few words. The the AUGI Wish List was presented to the various division vice presidents. The number one AutoCAD wish list request this year is the ability to import a PDF file into an AutoCAD drawing. Wish lists were also presented for Inventor, and for the first time wish lists were compiled and presented for Revit and Civil 3D.


The current board was recognized for their outstanding service.


Then we moved on to the exhibit hall for the annual AUGI Beer Blast. Donia Tabor-Hansen hosted a contest in the AUGI booth called Stump the Expert, which had people lined up

In fact, the turn out at the beer blast was incredible. It felt like nearly all of the nearly 10,000 people at AU were there for the event. At times, it was difficult to move. But there were plenty of serving tables and lots of beer and wine. If anyone went away hungry or thirsty, they weren't trying very hard

I spent some time in the Autodesk Labs area looking at some of the new technologies under development. One of the most intriguing was an addition to Design Review that will enable users to print out copies of DWF files, mark them up in the field using a special pen, and then transfer those markups back to the DWF file. I'll try to write more about this once I have a chance to check it out in greater detail.

Of course, back in the AUGI booth, Matt Murphy was on-hand to fulfill his promise to "buy a beer" for any CAD Camp attendee who stopped by. (Of course, the beer at the AUGI Beer Blast is free.)