All the News and Announcements from AU 2023

AU 2023 was incredible—and there was a lot of news that came from the main stage. We’ve pulled together all the big announcements for you in one slightly-longer-than usual blog. You’re welcome!  

• Cross-Industry
• AEC Design
• Autodesk Platform Services
• Construction
• Design & Manufacturing
• Media & Entertainment

Cross-Industry 

• Autodesk introduced Autodesk AI, technology that powers the Autodesk Design and Make Platform. It will help Design and Make professionals by augmenting their abilities, automating routine tasks, and analyzing data in new ways. 

Learn more and watch the General Session.  

AEC Design  

• The first offering of Forma, the Autodesk industry cloud for architecture, engineering, and construction, launched in May. Forma has a powerful suite of conceptual design tools that allow you to see the results of decisions in the planning phase, saving you time further down the line. These tools include real-time analyses of operational energy, microclimate, sun hours, daylight potential, wind, views, and noise.     
• We are integrating the c.scale data model for carbon footprinting in the United States, so you can get actionable insights into the embodied carbon and total carbon impact of your designs from the beginning of the planning process.     
• We introduced our new immersive collaborative workspace, Autodesk Workshop XR, giving teams the ability to review 3D models together in a real-time virtual experience.      
• Thanks to a new integration with Rhino 3D, you can bring your geometry from Rhino into Forma and instantly analyze the impact that factors like sun, wind, and noise have on your design. And you can bring your Forma terrain and surrounding building data into Rhino.      
• With our in-app purchasing for Contextual Data, any third-party provider can offer their own real-world datasets in Forma.      
• Now available in beta, you can use Dynamo to create geometry and custom analysis without ever leaving Forma.     
• Expanded capabilities for Forma in the next year will include generative site studies, so you can test multiple layouts including buildings, roads, and vegetation.      
• With our building detailing automation, you will be able to test the impact of wall thickness, window placements, and even materials. And you will be able to leverage third-party generators like Testfit for parking lot design directly in Forma.     
• We plan to integrate Unifi Pro with Autodesk Construction Cloud, so customers can organize, access, and manage BIM content, including Revit families and AutoCAD blocks, in one central location. And all Autodesk Docs users will get free access to Unifi Pro in a future release.      
• We are opening the Autodesk Forma platform so that anyone can contribute to seamless exchanges of information. We have entered a new interoperability agreement with Nemetschek and continue to work with Ansys and Trimble on new workflows.      
• We’re improving Autodesk Insight, expanding the Revit elements it uses for embodied carbon analysis. We’ve added operational carbon analysis, using the open source EnergyPlus simulation program developed by the US Department of Energy. So now you can see and share insights about the total carbon impact of your designs in a single collaborative workspace.     
• We’ve improved landscape design workflows in Revit. You can now link geo-coordinates between AutoCAD and Revit, import satellite imagery, and visualize your design.     
• We’re improving workflows for structural engineers of concrete projects in Revit, so rebar detailers can deliver faster and more accurate bar-bending and installation instructions. And we’re working on parametric rebar splicing to help incorporate design intent and construction layout planning.     
• With Revit 2024, we released a new feature called TopoSolid, representing topography as solid geometry instead of just surface. There are also different surface sections, like roads and bodies of water, and you can change elevation values, grading, contours, and more.     
• We’re making it easier to access Twinmotion for Revit by introducing a single sign-on using only your Autodesk ID.     
• We’ve added Activity Insights to AutoCAD to make it easier to track changes to a file and see an overview of every action taken in a DWG file filtered by the type, the contributor, or the date.       
• We’re improving hydraulic modeling with Integrated Drainage Design and Analysis in Civil 3D by extracting the hydraulic modeling capability from InfoDrainage into a cloud service. 
• We’ve simplified project management and design processes through the use of Autodesk Docs in Collaboration for Civil 3D so teams can work on design files and data simultaneously.       
• We’ll soon be launching Tandem Connect, a beta program to integrate bi-directional connections into Tandem, so you can easily create integrations with sensors and building systems.       
• In InfoDrainage, we’ve introduced an AI-enhanced Deluge Tool to give designers nearly instant feedback about flooding hotspots.      
• For Revit, Civil 3D, and AutoCAD, we’ve integrated the AI-guided Autodesk Assistant. Using Autodesk Assistant, you can ask questions or contact support directly from within the product.       
• With the latest release of Recap Pro, users can visualize, share, and coordinate reality capture data sets, along with design geometry, directly from the Autodesk Construction Cloud viewer.     
• We are also developing BIM extraction from reality capture data (Scan-to-BIM) using Autodesk Construction Cloud platform, leveraging AI to generate 3D models for infrastructure, architecture, and other applications.      
• We’ve supercharged Node Autocomplete with machine learning that’s been trained on years of real Dynamo graphs to help you build scripts faster and with fewer mistakes.     
   

Learn more and watch the AEC Design Industry Forum. 

Autodesk Platform Services 

• As the foundation of the Autodesk Platform, we introduced our new data strategy focusing on data granularity, data interoperability, and data accessibility.      
• Key to data granularity are the Autodesk Data Models that give industries the access to design and make project data in granular, bite-sized chunks. This gets you just the data you need, without sifting through massive files.      
• Data interoperability is achieved with Data Exchanges. You can now exchange subsets of that granular data instead of sending entire files. And since we maintain a full version history of all exchanges, you have an audit trail of who received what data and when. By making this data accessible through an API, we allow not just Autodesk products but third parties to participate in this ecosystem.      
• We’re releasing more Data Exchange Connectors, enabling you to unlock your design data and share it across the tools your teams work with. We’ve built connectors between Revit, Inventor, AutoCAD, and Civil3D, as well as Microsoft Power Automate, Rhino, Grasshopper, Tekla Structures, and recently SolidWorks, with many more to come.      
• With this data strategy, you can enable AI, automation, and seamless collaboration.     
   

Watch the Autodesk Platform Services Industry Forum.  

Construction 

• We introduced Model Viewer for mobile devices, now in beta. Tests show it’s five times faster than the original.       
• In Autodesk Takeoff, we’re working on tools to help estimators add unit costs to both 2D and 3D takeoffs, so you can immediately identify material tradeoffs that impact the project.       
• We’ve made VDC technology available to more of the project team by bringing clash detection into Revit. This enables you to pass information back and forth between Navisworks and BIM Collaborate and provides more control in model coordination.      
• With Advanced Filters, anyone can now quickly create custom views to coordinate, estimate, and build, keeping only relevant information on the screen.      
• 3D progress tracking colorizes the model, giving teams an easy way to visualize the status of any material, asset, or location, so the team can react and plan together in real-time, even if they’re in different places.      
• We expanded Bridge to support closed RFIs and submittal design packages and cloud models.      
• Work Planning capabilities in Autodesk Build, now in beta, enable new plans to be developed when old ones hit a snag, in the same environment as all relevant sheets, models, and schedules.       
• We’re developing intelligent search to get you the answers you need faster and gives you the ability to chat with Autodesk Construction Cloud.       
• With the upcoming Specifications tool, machine learning will automatically organize a spec book into important sections.     
   

Watch the Construction Industry Forum. 

Design & Manufacturing  

• Autodesk acquired Blank.AI, a generative AI technology that augments the work of industrial designers by pulling from their historical library of design work, then using AI to rapidly generate new concepts that build on your existing design style. It will debut in our Automotive Design Studio next year.      
• We will soon release cloud-enabled Bill of Materials in Fusion.       
• Through our partnership with Makersite, users can do carbon impact analysis directly in Fusion. Gain immediate feedback on design choices at the earliest stages of the product lifecycle.      
• By the end of the year, we will launch Automated Drawings in Fusion to translate 3D models into fully dimensioned drawings and select from multiple dimensioning styles with the click of a button.       
• Through partnership with CloudNC, we’re reducing toolpath programming times in Fusion by up to 80% through AI-powered CNC toolpath analysis and automation.      
• Autodesk is partnering with Cadence, the leader in electronic systems design tools, connecting their sophisticated PCB design capabilities directly to Fusion, so changes made in either tool will automatically be reflected in the other.       
• Autodesk has acquired FlexSim, the leading solution for discrete event simulation in factory operations. FlexSim helps with everything from planning and designing to building and operating your digital factory.     
• We’re bringing even more advanced multi-axis machining workflows to Fusion.     
• This year, we began offering machine tool simulation, enabling you to verify your code on specific hardware before cutting metal in the shop. We’ve also expanded turn-mill operations, and improved in-process probing to ensure you’re constantly cutting within tolerance. 
• Inventor now has enhanced construction interoperability with the integration of IFC that allows you to exchange data with products like Tekla.      
   

Learn more and watch the Design & Manufacturing Industry Forum. 

Media & Entertainment 

• Autodesk Flow, our industry cloud for Media & Entertainment, will allow data to move seamlessly between all stages of the production pipeline no matter what products you are using.        
• At the heart of Flow is a robust Data Model created specifically for the needs of the media and entertainment industry. It manages all your files, no matter where they are stored, and can represent all the media, files, and meta-data created during production.      
• Central to the data model is the notion of an asset.  Everything created in the M&E pipeline can be treated as an asset as long as it’s a trackable, “versionable” piece of information.         
• One of the first workflows we’re enabling with Flow is connecting onset activity to post-production. For onset, Flow Capture provides a powerful cloud-based digital dailies and review tool, enabling the artist assembling the scene to have direct access to all the onset data they need, such as camera and lens type, focal distance, the f-stop used, as well as the storyboard, LIDAR scans, and other production data in Maya.      
• Flow Production Tracking facilitates production management in post. As part of Flow Production Tracking, we will be including Generative Scheduling (currently in beta), an AI-powered analysis tool for production managers, that builds resource-optimized production schedules.       
• We’re building integrations with other tools, including Nuke from the Foundry, Houdini from SideFX, and Media Composer from Avid.       
• We’re integrating with Wonder Dynamics so Maya artists can seamlessly export CG characters from Maya into Wonder Studio. Artists can also export 3D scenes out of Wonder Studio back into Maya, complete with animation, camera, and lighting data.       
• In Maya, AI-assisted workflows will allow artists to use natural language text prompts to manipulate scenes and speed up rigging workflows. You’ll soon be able to approximate complex deformations on a character, and use that version for quick tasks like layout, blocking, and crowd work.        
• Starting next year, you will provide access to APIs that allow you to build your own tools and workflows on Flow.       
• We added LookdevX to Maya. Using a node-based environment, you can author a variety of materials like USDShade, MaterialX, and Arnold, and then share them freely throughout a pipeline and across multiple projects.       
• We added Hydra viewer support to Maya, providing a standard interface for you to render in the Maya viewport using your renderer of choice—Arnold, Renderman, Vray, or Cycles.       
• New capabilities in 3ds Max include an expanded modifier toolset so you can tackle more of your complex modeling tasks, procedurally; a more robust retopology toolset, allowing you to clean up any model you work with; and expanded motion paths that make it easier to visualize and refine your animations.      
• In Maya, we’ve improved animation performance and caching and are building a more intuitive user interface, simplified workflows for shaping animation curves, and tools that make facial rigging easier.         
• We’ve expanded Bifrost, our procedural framework for creating 3D content in Maya, adding new MPM gel simulation for creating materials such as icing and foam, as well as improved volume rendering in the viewport, and Apple Silicon support.        
   

Learn more and watch the Media & Entertainment Industry Forum.