By Tom Noda
The local office of software firm Autodesk gathered around 1,000 guests composed of technology experts and clients in its recent Autodesk Solutions Day where it shared its latest strategies in addressing the growing 3D design market.
Autodesk technical evangelist Lynn Allen served as keynote speaker at the event held at InterContinental Manila Hotel in Makati City. Autodesk Philippines country manager Teddy Tiu and other executives were also on hand to share how the company is creating 3D solutions for the design and engineering industry.
Allen highlighted design trends such as infinite computing, individualism in manufacturing, Autodesk 2015 Design Suites, including the new open 3D printing software platform called Spark.
She described infinite computing as one of the most exciting trend nowadays. “The old paradigm ‘design-then-analyze’ is transforming into one where we can use the cloud to analyze thousands of options in parallel, helping us create the best possible designs.”
Allen noted that mobile, social, and cloud computing technologies are driving a fundamental shift in computing, making it accessible anytime and anywhere with a virtually unlimited amount of computing power.
The executive said the Philippines, as an emerging market, will see increased spending on cloud computing with the growing usage of smart-connected devices.
Tiu, meanwhile, said the increase in computer processing, bandwidth, storage, affordability, and ubiquity now allows Autodesk to deploy hundreds, even thousands, of computers to help solve the growing number of challenges faced as designers, engineers, and artists.
Explaining the rise of “individualism in manufacturing,” Allen said the notion that “everyone’s a designer” is changing the worlds of design and manufacturing and has started impacting the building industry as well. Thus, Autodesk is expecting an increase use of 3D printing among local manufacturers, especially now that the technology is slowly gaining prominence.
In introducing the recently released 2015 Design Suites, Tiu said Autodesk now offers a new interface and enhanced productivity tools for design and documentation. Each suite includes AutoCAD 2015, said to be the most advanced AutoCAD yet.
Both executives also said Autodesk is now very much involved with 3D printing technology to help bring 3D printing to the masses.
“We’re creating an open-source 3D printing format called Spark. It’s free of charge, easy to use, and hopefully becomes the industry standard so we can all talk using the same language,” Allen said.
“In general, 3D printing is just so amazing, because it allows you to manufacture things that had never been done before.”
