Autodesk Technology Keynote

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ANNOUNCER: Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Senior Vise President Design and Creation Products, Amy Bunszel.

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AMY BUNSZEL: Welcome to day two of Autodesk University and our product keynote. You is a celebration of learning. The classes and seminars you attend, the exhibits, the networking, all help keep your skills sharp and relevant.

Today I want to embrace that spirit of learning and share with you the strategic priorities that drive development of the products you use every day. We want you to stay current and to be prepared to adapt to what is possible. My primary goal today is to share how we think about building products. Put simply, our thinking is driven by you. What matters to you matters to us.

Along our journey this morning, you will see product enhancements driven by you. You may see recent improvements that you already use. And I suspect you will see something that is completely new to you, something that inspires you to investigate this week at AU, or next week in your office.

If yesterday's opening keynote was about the next decade, today is about next week. I recognize that you have work to do today, and encourage you to look for something in my presentation that you can leverage right now. There's no way to squeeze all the major product updates of the past year into the next hour, but the details I share today do tell a story.

They illustrate what our development priorities are. They illustrate how I see our role. So what are our priorities? What is our role? I see Autodesk as your co-pilot. Make no mistake, you are the pilot. You understand your market, your customers, your competition. You pilot your business.

And I know for most of the people in this room, your core business is not building software. But software has long been critical for your business success. And it has become increasingly complex to navigate. That's where Autodesk can help. After all, what is a co-pilot's role?

A good co-pilot smooths the ride, identifies obstacles, and navigates the course that you charted. This is how we approach product development. These are our priorities. For example, just as a co-pilot helps make the ride smoother, we work to make your software more reliable and efficient.

We want your projects to fly without turbulence, while you enjoy easy to consume, ongoing enhancements. And just as any good co-pilot helps you avoid obstacles, Autodesk it is putting your designs at the center of your workflow, to help you achieve your goals. We want you to avoid obstacles when you move design data between tasks. And finally, just as a co-pilot helps you navigate the course that the pilot charted, we help you navigate your future to try new technology.

So let's drill down on this first priority and illustrate it with some product highlights. As your software co-pilot, we strive to make the flight smoother by delivering targeted enhancements. And we're making it easier than ever before for you to access your software. We are improving how you give us feedback.

Not long ago, we delivered new software releases only once a year. And some customers would wait two or three releases before updating. They were missing out on a lot of value. And if we didn't get an enhancement quite right, your feedback arrived only after the new release. So you had to wait another year for additional improvements.

Now while these changes, challenges, are not completely resolved, they are improving. Today, we really suffer updates when they are ready. For some products, that's as often as once a quarter. And many of you are consuming these updates more often, capitalizing on the full value of your subscription. And you can now join our engineers throughout development, providing feedback more often.

We rely on this stronger, faster collaboration with you. Just as a pilot and co-pilot must be in constant communication, we are working to strengthen our communication with you. We crowdsource ideas for enhancements. You submit your requests, and then you get to vote for your favorite.

So how does this help you? Well, with your input, the Inventor team rolled out dozens of enhancements, including 3D annotations for parts and assemblies that streamline downstream cam and inspection workflows. And you requested faster auto save for AutoCAD. Now you have it.

You asked for multi-monitor support for Revit, and we're working on it. And your number one request for 3ds Max was advanced fluid simulation. And now you've got it. Overall, you drove hundreds of enhancements this past year. And I'm asking for your help again in driving hundreds more this year, by participating on our ideas station platforms and our forums.

Our communication channels aren't limited to online submissions and voting. Your participation during development meetings provides real-time feedback. You are helping us build software for you and with you. And the happy result of all this communication is apparent everywhere.

The current version of AutoCAD now offers navigation performance that is ten times faster than recent releases. Thanks to your feedback, AutoCAD draws faster, pans faster, and zooms faster. You'll notice that countless interactions move more quickly, more fluidly in both 2D and 3D. It all adds up to a more responsive experience, so you can work more quickly.

With your feedback, the Inventor team boosted performance, for drawings, models, 3D graphics, especially for large assemblies. And now, Inventor offers quicker rendering, component selection is twice as fast, drawing view creation is twice as fast, and graphics performance is ten times faster. All of this will help you finish your jobs more quickly.

And what about Revit? While many of you are power users today, you probably remember when you were using Revit for the first time. Now Revit offers ready to use content, cubicles, furniture, windows, appliances, massive libraries of content that help your new colleagues come up to speed much more quickly.

You also worked with the Revit team to incorporate ductwork features from CAD MEP and piping from Plant 3D. Together, we minimized the steps and the time required to move between tasks. Now you can generate reports directly on models authored in Revit. Together we eliminated turbulence, pilot and co-pilot working in concert for a smoother ride.

The InfraWorks team piloted a rolling sandbox, essentially a place where you can try early, unreleased features and offer your feedback immediately. Your participation in the sandbox helped us release road resurfacing optimization far ahead of schedule. InfraWorks and Civil 3D now optimize road resurfacing much faster with automated workflows and analysis, thanks to you.

And big news for all 3ds Max users out there. You can now apply the Arnold Render Engine. This is the same lightning fast engine used by over 300 studios for visual effects and animation with Maya. Whether your rendering your next building facade, or product design, now you have it. And who knew that a fake glass of wine could look so compelling at 10 AM? We must be in Vegas.

Blade Runner 2049, Westworld, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them-- these are some of the films and television shows that use Arnold, and now you can too. And do you know what else excites us, as much as this guy loves food? It's making it easier for us to work together.

The Autodesk desktop app smooths out your ride as you use software day to day. In fact, our internal code name for this app was "Wing Man." It was designed from the very beginning to play a supporting role. The latest updates include a simplified one-click install for full products, and the ability to include all applicable updates when you're installing a new full product.

This app improves your access and understanding of the constant stream of software updates that we're providing. You can now purchase, install, and find support with far less turbulence. And for all of you administrators in the audience, Autodesk Account helps you manage your products, people, and payments.

Account helps you review available product upgrades and decide whether to update or not. And you can monitor how many licenses your team has and if they're being fully utilized. And if your users need support, all of your options are available in Account.

The use of your software should be smooth and turbulent free. This includes management and support. These tools are a step in that direction. But we know we have more to do in our role as your co-pilot. We noticed that you're losing valuable time as you search for information that should be at your fingertips.

So we launched the Autodesk Virtual Agent, or AVA, as a primary point of contact, for customers seeking help through the web or from within our products. With AVA, Autodesk is embracing natural language processing, machine learning, and many of the amazing automation tools that Andrew described yesterday.

AVA now responds to over 35,000 support questions every month. Got a basic question, like finding your software serial number? That's the kind of task that AVA was purpose built to solve, almost instantaneously. This frees up our staff to help you with more complex support requests.

In fact, many of you are using AVA this week at AU, finding classroom locations, looking for activities, if your schedule opens up. Yesterday, AVA helped me find a session on augmented reality that I really wanted to see.

Now you shouldn't expect AVA to teach you how to build a rocket ship. But the resource is here to help us all, and make us all more efficient. And who knows, maybe someday, as we enhance AVA over time, she just might help you build that rocket ship.

While our support team is smoothing the ride, we also enhanced the product to reduce turbulence from within. One of my favorite enhancements is the addition of a simple visual cue that alerts you to something new. These orange dots indicate that a feature was recently updated in AutoCAD. You can hover over the dot and get a brief description of the enhancement, and then decide if you'd like to explore further. We are leveraging your feedback to look at all aspects of the software to improve your experience.

It's not just about adding new capability. You asked us to smooth out the journey across your experience. So in addition to making your products more efficient and reliable, we're working to put your designs at the center of everything you do. Yes, we want to avoid a bumpy flight, but we really want to avoid obstacles altogether.

So what is one of your biggest obstacles? I bet most of you are thinking data. Data sharing, data interoperability, moving data, or accessing data can be a tremendous obstacle. This has been true since the beginning of our industry.

We need to do a better job here. We know that you work with teams across regions and disciplines, and the bigger the team, the more obstacles you face. You want connected products that don't slow you down as you move from task to task or product to product. And to accomplish this obstacle free journey, you need data at the center of your work, removing boundaries that otherwise disrupt your day.

Improving interoperability between Autodesk products remains an important top priority for us, whether in 2D or 3D, and regardless of discipline. With AnyCAD you can bring Fusion models directly into Inventor, so that you can do system integration, large assembly design and documentation. And any changes made in Fusion are automatically available in Inventor-- obstacle removed.

Plus, it's a two-way street. When you're on CAM and Fusion for high speed machining, changes made in the original Inventor model are captured in Fusion. Data is moving obstacle free, and at the center of your work-- another obstacle removed.

AutoCAD and Inventor also offer cross-discipline integration, as Inventor models appear with an AutoCAD factory layout designs. And you can use 2D and 3D tools, depending on your preference. Again, your data's at the center. You choose how to interact with it and which tool to use.

Beyond Autodesk products, we understand that you use tools for multiple vendors. So how can you avoid obstacles across these tools? Today, if you operate on models created in SolidWorks, ProE, Catia, or other CAD tools, you can edit them with Inventor. And if you change the original file with the original software, that change is automatically reflected within Inventor. Gone are the days of using non-associative neutral file formats to share data-- another obstacle removed.

And tell me if this was an obstacle-- you wanted to share your designs with a client, a stakeholder, or a partner, but you didn't want to lose control of your intellectual property. Now, with the new Shared Views feature, you can share your design through an online viewer without sharing your source files. You protect your intellectual property. Meanwhile, your client and partners can view, comment, markup the design in a web browser or on a mobile device-- obstacle gone. This feature will roll out across many of our products in the coming months.

Another example of keeping your data at the center, you can now publish Inventor models to Revit to incorporate equipment in your BIM models. This removes the need to create a data set for product design and another for BIM, as exchanging data between modeling tools becomes obstacle free.

And I know that you don't always have a complete BIM model to work with. So working closely with customers, the InfraWorks team built tools to help you import point clouds from scans into your BIM model. Now you can connect ReCap to InfraWorks, create conceptual road and bridge designs, while incorporating existing data, and then build detailed engineering models in Revit and Civil 3D.

While interoperating between desktop products is important, sometimes you need to move data between platforms, not products. Many of you work remotely and in the field. You need to access your data from any platform. With AutoCAD, you have anytime, anywhere access to your data, on the Mac, on Windows, on web, or mobile. Again, by putting your data at the center, regardless of where or how you work, obstacles fall away, and our flight continues without interruption.

And Autodesk isn't the only software company who understands how important it is for you to access your DWG files. Dropbox approached us recently to help remove an obstacle for you. Currently, there are over 1.5 billion, billion, DWG files stored on the Dropbox platform. And last year, Dropbox customers tried and failed to view DWG files over 48 million times.

That sounds like a big obstacle and a lot of frustration. So we worked with Dropbox to show them how to use the Forge platform. And coming soon is the ability to view DWG files within Dropbox. We expect to see more companies doing the same, along with DWG editing and more, as they build on Forge components.

And you can plug in to Forge too. Norconsult is one of Norway's most innovative engineering and design firms. And while they were customizing their in-house applications by embedding Autodesk features, or moving data between software, the Norconsult team is a great example of how to keep data at the center. This is especially true as they worked on Vamma 12, Norway's largest river hydro power plant.

Norconsult used Revit's open API to integrate Norwegian pricing codes for building materials and delivered faster cost evaluations for better decisions. The team also developed tools to accurately measure the amount of concrete needed on site. Now adopting new technology is not always straightforward. Some of their partners were skeptical about these incredibly precise concrete estimates. So skeptical in fact, that they ordered extra concrete.

But after some early progress, the team agreed that the calculations were accurate, and they canceled their order for additional concrete. Norconsult is doing more, better, and with less waste. And Norconsult also imported their SolidWorks turbine model into Revit, so that the team could adjust the structural components to fit around the machinery.

The same tools in Revit also helped the team run rebar layouts scripts to save countless numbers of hours on rebar design, and build a best in class steel reinforcement for the dam. It would have taken ages to iterate various rebar configurations, but it was all done in a snap. Again, frictionless data should be at the center of your work, not obstacles.

And they integrated designs from Revit, Inventor, Civil 3-D, Advanced Steel, all on top of reality capture data from ReCap and into Navisworks, to monitor progress and reduce clashes between digital models and as-built data. The result of all that data integration, a 90% reduction in change orders. And the change orders that did pop up were minor.

Doing more with less material and less wasted time, obstacles gone. If you haven't already done so, please be sure to experience the Norconsult exhibit in the Future of Making Things Experience Hall, where you can see how data was at the center of everything they did.

So whether you are accessing your [INAUDIBLE] from your mobile device, from another software vendor, from Dropbox, from Fusion, Inventor, Revit, Navisworks, your data is at the center of everything. And as your projects fly along on a smoother journey with fewer obstacles, you have more time to try new technology.

The third priority we're addressing as our co-pilot is how our products serve as a launchpad for new technology. Now new technology can be intimidating. But you tell us where you want to go, and how quickly, and we help you navigate that path. So what does that look like? Let me share an example.

Bridgestone has been making tires for over 100 years. In that time, Bridgestone has adopted a lot of new technology. And although tires are still made by mixing rubber, the level of automation and innovation has grown exponentially. And the Bridgestone team has been charting a course for the future by creating a virtual factory as they renovate older equipment.

Many of Bridgestone's factories have equipment that is 50 or 60 years old. In fact, one has a 100-year-old machine. Upgrading these valuable assets presents a unique challenge. The company has only 2D drawings for most of its massive, multi-story, legacy machinery. And they needed a way to model this in 3D.

With our reality capture technology, ReCap, Bridgestone scanned their equipment and created a 3D model to use as a reference. To retrofit the equipment, they imported these 3D scans into Inventor. They converted the point clouds into accurate models, and then began to design new parts. They used the model to isolate specific parts and to make precise measurements.

As Bridgestone sees it, if designing in 3D is helpful, why not take it further? Why not view it in 3D as well? So they used augmented reality to view their new designs before installation. The design team invites the maintenance team to view the retrofits in advance. Bridgestone wants to ensure that their crews can access the equipment easily and minimize downtime.

After renovating a $3 million piece of machinery, you don't want to learn that there is no way for an employee to reach the bearings and grease them. You don't want to learn after a renovation that a factory robot is going to hit a $600,000 pipe rack overhead. Mixed reality helps the Bridgestone team reveal these issues in advance. From Inventor, to 3ds Max Interactive, to holograms and virtual reality experiences, the data moves seamlessly through the process. They complete their design review on a virtual factory floor.

As exciting as these workflows are, Bridgestone is just getting started. They are moving deliberately to roll this out at every Bridgestone plant. Plus, they also see value in mixed reality for training staff on new equipment. By embracing technology like this, it's no wonder Bridgestone has been in business for over a century. And you can see it all at Bridgestone's immersive exhibit in the Future of Making Things Experience Hall.

Still, new technology isn't only virtual reality or mixed reality. And we're working with you to navigate other new tools. We know you need to experience how things operate, perform, and function earlier in the process. In other words, you need to simulate the real world.

So as you rapidly deploy design cycles, relying on computational engineering, you now can use new tools for advanced simulation embedded directly in many of the design and engineering tools you use today. From linear, non-linear stress, heat transfer analysis, to dynamic simulation, and computational fluid dynamics, you can use Nastran software to predict, validate, and optimize your products.

And for AEC customers navigating their path to new technology, you also have advanced simulation capabilities to explore. When your firm must simulate egress and evacuation from a building, Revit now automates much of that time-consuming task. And the InfraWorks team partnered with Hydrangea to add functionality to simulate flood conditions.

The team working on the Grand Paris project has been simulating flood impacts as they work to transform Paris into a sustainable and resilient city that can compete with megacities. This means constructing new buildings and infrastructure, smarter and more efficiently, and planning ahead for more extreme weather events. It's tools like this that help you build smarter, more resilient buildings and cities.

You can also navigate new designs to fabrication tools for a more fluid way of connecting design to manufacturing and construction. Our manufacturing customers now enjoy five access CNC machining and rapid prototyping to get their products to market faster, where speed to market is critical. And the AEC market is quickly adopting similar design to fab technologies, like seamlessly transferring pre-cast concrete or duct work to a fabricator.

As you navigate this new technology to maintain your competitive advantage, you'll see these features improve quickly over time, as we collaborate with you to perfect them. Ultimately, a good co-pilot measures her success by your success. By launching new technology like this, we are here to help you navigate the course you charted for your business.

Now, while I can share stories from customers like Norconsult and Bridgestone to illustrate a point, I also want you to hear from other co-pilots, or other pilots, just like you. Kalitta Motor Sports just finished the National Hot Rod Association's 2017 top fuel racing season with a third place finish. This builds on an impressive history of wins and championship title.

These cars are incredible, they travel at over 300 miles an hour, and the race is over in less than four seconds. Winners are determined by milliseconds. So building powerful, yet lightweight, vehicles becomes the key to victory.

The man behind Kalitta's machine shop magic is here today to share just how his team uses software to win races and championships. Please join me in welcoming Kalitta Motor Sports Engineering and Manufacturing Manager Tim Evans.

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[ENGINE REVS]

TIM EVANS: Thank you, Amy. Seems like I've been involved in racing and machining for as long as I can remember. Like most kids, I fell in love with speed and racing just on a bicycle with my friends, having fun. But that initial spark grew to a motor sports passion that has driven my life's work and play. From motorcycles to cars, from engine builder to machinist, I found that races are won long through hours at the machine shop, long before you get to the race track.

Now although I didn't become a professional driver, the skills I learned served as the foundation for the career that follows. After leaving the Air Force in 1988, I began my professional racing career with Alan Kulwicki. In the time since then, I've been a part of winning racing programs in INDYCAR, NASCAR, and Sports Car Series across the country.

That first professional job though was the start of a learning and racing adventure that continues today. Currently I work with Kalitta Motor Sports on 10,000 horsepower top fuel dragsters, which may be the biggest challenge from a development perspective I've seen yet. The race lasts less than four seconds, and ends at over 330 miles per hour, with hundreds of tuning variables, and weather and track conditions changing every time you run.

The races are won and lost by inches and thousandths of a second. Developing these cars has required the latest technology and learning new skills to be efficient, both in design and manufacturing. That drive to learn that I had is the same drive I'm sure all of you have, and the motive behind why so many of you are here at an event like this.

Now learning was the focus of my early years. I wanted to know everything about every system of the car, especially the engines. Getting every ounce of performance from a device seemed like it was alive was my obsession. And although I was a machinist since high school, the most important skills I acquired next were the use of CAD, CAM software, and CNC machines.

Speed and the process became a priority, for great designs that were on the drawing boards never win races. Streamlining the process also became a competitive advantage that was critical for our racing success. Having one product that could do all the CAD and CAM work without converting files, reloading models, losing sketches, or just crashing the whole system, in the early days it was only a dream.

Fast forward to 2014, when I first started working with Kalitta Racing. My first task was to evaluate the current parts, processes, and software, and improve the areas that would provide the most return in performance. When I spoke to Amy earlier, I realized we were both looking for the same thing, and that was efficiency.

In top fuel drag racing, one system that demands the most efficiency is the clutch assembly. It's primarily titanium, 14 inches in diameter with six disks, and a lot of moving parts. The whole assembly weighs almost 100 pounds and spins over 8,800 RPM. The clutch acts as our continuously variable transmission and is rebuilt after every run, and adjusted based on the air and track conditions.

A hot track is slippery. A cool track has more grip. So the clutch can be applied harder and faster without spinning the tires. Temperature, humidity, and the engine tuning all affect the equation. A few grams of counter-weight is all it takes to win the race or spin your tires and lose in a cloud of smoke.

Now turning the clutch on a top fuel car is an art more than a science. But that art needs a solid foundation to build on. Close tolerances and repeatability in the parts is crucial. Constant improvement is vital.

The program was previously stuck using older CNC software that created simple tool paths, which equaled slow production. At that time, machining each of the main clutch components acquired about 30 hours of machine time and was very hard on tooling. When I started with Kalitta, I reviewed the latest CAD and CAM software, and discovered Inventor HSM.

Integration is really what sealed the deal for us, the ability to make changes, and work directly on the solid model, and instantly update the tool path all in the same software. It worked like magic. The adaptive tool paths in the HSM program were a game changer for speed and programming simplicity. Our machine time was cut by two thirds, from 30 hours to 10, and the adaptive tool control allowed us to machine titanium pieces with smaller tools at higher feeds and lower cutting costs.

Training, as well, was a snap. The learning curve was incredibly quick. And I'll never forget the look on one of our CNC programmer's face when he realized just how cumbersome and slow the older software was after he started using Inventor. And also, just as Amy described, our designs are at the center of our work. And we can move easily now between software.

Before we started with Autodesk, I had already started modeling the cylinder heads, and Kalitta had many legacy parts that were modeled in SolidWorks. Now working with SolidWorks models in Inventor was a click and go affair. AnyCAD allowed us to open and link to the original model software. And any time it was opened or updated, the parts were changed in the software as we were programming it.

Now the data, not the software, was at the center of our work. This year, the NHRA approved our cylinder head design, and our team saw better performance on the track immediately. We now manufacture cylinder heads faster, and make changes faster, and do it all at far lower cost. We'll produce over 100 cylinder heads this year for our four race teams.

With HSM adaptive tool paths, we produce these heads now with a 66% reduction in cost. That's about $2,400 in savings per head. And we have similar and even larger savings in the other clutch components, as well as parts that we make, especially anything we make in titanium, which we're able to machine like aluminum with the adaptive tool paths. Speed and the ability to redesign, reprogram, and machine faster, and with lower tooling costs would not be possible if our data was still stuck in the old software.

Now that we have a solid foundation, we're using Inventor to analyze and refine every area of our cars. One of the key areas we're starting to use with Autodesk is simulation. The development of these cars is what is so difficult. Although we can capture multiple channels of data every time we go down the track, the time between runs is what makes the comparison truly difficult.

After each run, our team needs to rebuild the clutch and the engine before we can run again. In that time, the air temperature, the track conditions, everything changes, and becomes very difficult to find those tenths of a second.

Wind tunnel testing has other complications. Calibrating and correlating the results when that tunnel airspeed is 180 miles an hour, to our track race speed of over 300 miles per hour, opens the door for serious deviations. Eliminating any ineffective designs and only testing the best options at the track and the wind tunnel is crucial for our time and budget constraints.

So instead of running expensive and time consuming wind tunnel and track tests, we're using FEA and CFD to give us an inexpensive and fast results from multiple iterations. Not only of the parts but also the setup adjustments, to modify the aerodynamic performance.

Another thing I'm very excited about doing more with is Autodesk Generative Design. We'll feed our baseline models into the parameters into Autodesk Generative Design software and let the cloud explore the possible options, generating design alternatives which our team can choose.

Generative Design gives us design parts that are just strong enough to withstand the pressure of the track, but lightweight enough to maximize our results. I'm very excited to see what direction and different design concepts we may discover through this process.

Now it wasn't a difficult decision to decide to speak here at Autodesk University. We found a real partnership with the team here. The software helps us make our cars faster, and eliminate the typical data headaches, and explore new technology. Today, as always, I still love the challenge to develop cars that go faster, build parts that are light, but still reliable, and develop systems that are more efficient.

And I still love the thrill of competition and the pride I feel every week when our innovations boost performance. Autodesk has made the difficulties of my early days using CAD and CAM a memory. In fact, we're so pleased with everything that our co-pilots at Autodesk have done, I'd like to ask Amy to become a part of our racing team. Thank you.

[APPLAUSE]

Every time we go down the track and win, it's because of all the little things that we've been able to do with Autodesk. And we appreciate it.

AMY BUNSZEL: Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

TIM EVANS: Thank you, Amy. I'll hold onto it for you.

AMY BUNSZEL: All right.

[APPLAUSE]

So I think my teenagers will find that a little bit ironic, me wearing a Kalitta racing shirt, and repeatedly telling them to obey the speed limit. So Tim offers some great examples of why we focus on creating more efficient, reliable software with data at the center, software that offers the newest technology to give you a winning edge.

I am constantly amazed to see how all of you use Autodesk software to win. Now with Tim, the ultimate goal is to win races. With my next guest, the goal is to win business. Skanska is a world leading project development and construction group based in Sweden, with offices around the world. And the Skanska team in Florida is making a big impression, not only within Skanska, but across the construction industry. Here to share this story is Skansa's USA's Virtual Design and Construction Manager, Kelsey Stein.

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[APPLAUSE]

Welcome.

KELSEY STEIN: Thank you very much for having me, Amy. Last year, 6.3 million virtual reality headsets were sold. Our local pre-construction team bought just one of those headsets. We ended up using it to win five out of the next six projects we pursued, for a total of several hundred million dollars.

Today, I'm going to share with you how we leverage new technology from Autodesk to alter our current workflow and gain the competitive edge. Now this journey began two years ago. My manager, Jeff Courtney, was sitting in the audience just like all of you. He was listening to talk about virtual reality, using the game engine Stingray, now called Max Interactive.

Now he's a construction manager of 30 years, but he loves attending AU and learning about the latest and greatest technology. So sitting in this class got him thinking that virtual reality would be a great tool for construction. But he needed to test this theory.

So when he got back from AU, he asked me to see if this software was right for Skanska. Now little asterisks here, I am not a programmer. At that time, I had never created a project in virtual reality before. Like many of you, my background's in architecture.

I worked overseas for the better part of a decade, designing stadiums and arenas all over Australia, New Zealand, and Southeast Asia. My expertise is in complex 3D models, big BIN data sets, and international coordination efforts, not VR.

But I built upon this solid foundation in BIM, and joined Autodesk Virtual Reality Beta Team. And what we found is that VR was a great tool for construction. The simplicity of the workflow that went from Revit, to Live, to Max Interactive, allowed us to bypass traditional rendering software.

Now beyond this, we were interested in the functionality that Stingray or Max Interactive provided. We wanted to include design options, material options, and cost, all in VR. Now this has never been done before. So we also needed to make a process that was simple, repeatable, and scalable, that we can use on a variety of projects.

Now this is where Autodesk stepped in. Luckily, our account managers put us in contact with the right guy for the job, Dave Tyner. Dave has been absolutely great to work with. Here's a few pictures of him, in case you need to recognize for one of your future projects.

Now together, Dave and I created the Skanska Stringray template that we presented at AU last year. Now the beauty of this template is that it allowed us to create functionality on our own, without the need for programming, or Autodesk Consulting. So after AU, took the template back with us, and we used it on a variety of projects over the next couple of months.

We ended up winning five out of six of those projects. Let me show you two examples now. This is the Living Building at Georgia Tech University. Now, the Living Building Challenge is a very rigorous sustainability certification program. Using this tool, our clients were interested in looking at design options, material options, and cost.

For example, for this feature wall, the client wanted to use several different sustainable building materials. We could cycle through those building materials and show the costs associated for each one. Our client was also interested in looking at natural light. Using this tool, we could show the sun angles at different times of the day. We could also show different facade options.

Now the 35% glazing facade option was not a very nice space. It didn't let in much natural light. But the 45% glazing option, that you can see here, let in much more natural light. It was a better space for both the students and the professors.

Now using this tool, we can toggle the cost on and show the client that there was less than $100,000 difference between the two. So the client went with more natural light. So you can see how this tool is allowing our clients to make real-time design decisions.

Now another example is the linear accelerator. This room is part of an oncology suite in a hospital. It's an incredibly expensive room, surrounded by two-foot thick concrete wall to ensure radiation from that machine doesn't escape. It's only accessible by a long, maze-like corridor. Now

As you can imagine, this is very traumatic experience for the patients. Using this tool, we're able to show the owner how they can transform this space from a cold, sterile environment into a much more warm and comforting space for the patients. We can change the materials and show the cost associated with those material changes. For just a few thousand dollars more, we can transform this space and this experience for the patient.

Now another great feature is multi-user. This functionality allows us to walk side by side with the owner through their project. We can even hand them the cost pad and they can make changes on the floor, wall, and ceiling on their own. The costs are updated in real-time, as they make those changes.

This works with the client that's standing right next to you in the same room, or they can be on the completely opposite side of the country in a different office. So you can see, our clients are viewing this tool as a technological differentiator. VR enhances the client experience by helping them visualize their project, but it also helps us convey the cost implications of different design decisions.

Finally, it allows clients to make decisions earlier in the design process. This benefits everyone. By taking small steps and building on our successes, we've been able to use this tool as a launch pad for future development, especially with regard to big data.

Now with Autodesk's help, we've made improvements to the template Dave and I are presenting these improvements this very afternoon. And let me give you a sneak peek. We are now able to access an entire Revit model in all of it's BIN data in VR. We can filter by any number of Revit parameters, including level, department, cost, or assembly type.

We can run a 4D construction sequence on the entire building or just one of those filtered views. Finally, we can run total cost on one element, the entire building, or filter level. Now this is an incredible time to be in the construction industry.

This has been an amazing journey over the past two years, and I know it's just the beginning. To summarize, I have three pieces of advice for you. First, start small. Starting small ensures success. What we were doing had never been done before, and a small project was manageable by both Skanska and the client.

Secondly, starting small allowed us to build upon our successes. I knew absolutely nothing about VR when all this started. Dave would teach me one thing, and then I would go off and learn four or five more things on my own. When I got stuck, I would come back, and this process would start all over again. Now this working model enabled us to accomplish so much more than if we would have tried to implement a big data multi-user project from the beginning.

Lastly, none of this would have been possible without vision. My manager, Jeff Courtney, saw the potential for VR in construction because he attended a class on gaming. So my last piece of advice for you is to never stop exploring. Attended a class at AU that has absolutely nothing to do with your field. You just might end up on the main stage at Autodesk University. Thank you.

[APPLAUSE]

AMY BUNSZEL: All right, I think Tim and Kelsey deserve another round of applause.

[APPLAUSE]

So all I can say is wow. It's not often that a team explains how they quadruple their business to an audience that includes their competitors. Be sure to catch Kelsey's class here at AU to learn more about her work. And also be like Jeff, look for new ideas in unusual places.

I enjoyed learning about Kelsey and Tim's work as we prepared this keynote. They each shared how they benefit from new efficiencies, having data at the center of their work, and adopting new technology. Their stories demonstrate why we focus on these development priorities.

Efficient, reliable software helps to ensure that your business runs smoothly, without turbulence. Keeping data at the center of your work removes obstacles that slow you down so you can finish on time and on budget. And introducing new technology in our products keeps you competitive and lays the foundation for the future of making things and the future of work.

We are proud to be Skanska and Kalitta's co-pilot on this journey, and proud to be yours. We know you have a choice when it comes to technology. And we look forward to many more flights together.

Now you just heard me talk about our commitment to keep your data at the heart of your work, regardless of discipline or software product. With your active participation, we are finally removing the arbitrary and proprietary obstacles that challenged this ideal in the past. I'd like to invite Andrew back up on stage to share his thoughts on how important this commitment is, not just for the software industry and you, but for solving big challenges. Now please, welcome Andrew Anagnost.

[APPLAUSE]

ANDREW ANAGNOST: Thank you, Amy. Nicely done. He's back. For those of you who might know me, I'm a huge aerospace geek, I love airplanes and spaceships. So this whole co-pilot thing is like shameless pandering. I didn't know this was their theme.

But for those of you who are pilots, you probably know that when you're trying to get from one destination to another, and it's foggy out there, it's not clear, the most important thing you can have in the cockpit is good data. Because if you don't have good data, you're either going to end up in the wrong airport or worse.

So this whole notion of keeping data at the center of your work, because the data represents the most valuable asset you have, your intellectual property, your ideas, regardless of the software you use, or the task you start, your data should move without friction. Your ideas have to move smoothly from one team to the next if we are going to address all the big challenges we have to address together.

We've talked about population pressures. We talked about it yesterday. We talked about crumbling infrastructure. We talked about increasingly extreme weather threatening the built world everywhere. And there's another obstacle that's out there, in terms of the commitment to frictionless ideas. It's that we forget to connect the data of the what-- all these wonderful models you're seeing-- with the data of the where.