News and Updates

Three Papers Accepted at ACM UIST Symposium on Human-Computer Interfaces
June 19, 2012 — Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

The User Interface Research group at Autodesk have 3 of their paper submissions accepted at this year's ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST), a premier forum for discussion and innovation in the field of human-computer interfaces. Bringing together researchers and practitioners from diverse areas of interest, including graphical and web interfaces, ubiquitous computing, virtual and augmented reality, as well as novel input and ouput devices, this year's event will be held between October 7th and 10th in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Accepted papers will be presented at the conference and will appear in the UIST 2012 Conference Proceedings. The accepted papers submitted by the research group, for which the acceptance rate for submissions hovers at around 20%, include:

GamiCAD: A Gamified Tutorial System for First Time AutoCAD Users.
Wei Li, Tovi Grossman & George Fitzmaurice.

Magic Finger: Always-Available Input through Finger Instrumentation.
Xing-Dong Yang, Tovi Grossman, Daniel Wigdor & George Fitzmaurice.

Waken: Bringing Application Tutorial Videos to Life.
Nikola Banovic, Tovi Grossman, Justin Matejka & George Fitzmaurice.

For more information about the research group, visit the Autodesk Research website. To find out more about this year's event, visit the ACM UIST Symposium website or their Facebook page.

Autodesk Research Project on Implanted Devices Featured on "Daily Planet" Television Show
May 16, 2012 — Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Autodesk Research’s Tovi Grossman was featured in a segment on the May 15, 2012, episode of Discovery Channel’s Daily Planet discussing the viability of implanting user interface devices underneath the human skin.

In a recent research paper entitled, “Implanted User Interfaces”, a number of researchers from Autodesk Research (in collaboration with a researcher at the Division of Anatomy at the University of Toronto, and, a Ph.D. student from the Hasso Plattner Institute at the University of Potsdam) evaluated various low-level implanted devices against numerous technical and medical challenges that this technology may experience.

To see the full television interview, visit Daily Planet’s website (the segment begins at 2:55 of the video).
To read more about other research projects by Autodesk Research, check out the Autodesk Research projects page.

Research Group to Present Four Papers at 30th Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
May 2, 2012 — Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Autodesk Research will present four of their submitted papers early next week at the ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI). This year's annual event will take place between May 5th and 10th at the Austin Convention Center, in Austin, Texas, and represent a gathering of the some of top international researchers in the area of human-computer interaction (HCI).

Autodesk's success follows last year's strong results, where six of their submissions were accepted and presented during the 2011 conference. Guided by UI Research group lead, George Fitzmaurice, and principal researcher, Tovi Grossman, three of the four paper submissions were led by research interns.

The four papers submitted this year include:

Delta: A Tool for Representing and Comparing Workflows
Nicholas Kong, Tovi Grossman, Björn Hartmann, George Fitzmaurice & Maneesh Agrawala.

Implanted User Interfaces
Christian Holz, Tovi Grossman, George Fitzmaurice & Anne Agur.

Swift: Reducing the Effects of Latency in Online Video Scrubbing
Justin Matejka, Tovi Grossman & George Fitzmaurice.

Triggering Triggers and Burying Barriers to Customizing Software
Nikola Banovic, Fanny Chevalier, Tovi Grossman & George Fitzmaurice.

Autodesk Research Participates at IMI-CoE 3D-IDM Workshop
March 13, 2012 — Singapore

Jos Stam, a senior research scientist at Autodesk, presented some research in his talk, "Nucleus: A Unified Dynamics Solver for Computer Graphics" last week during the IMI-CoE 3D-IDM Workshop held at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.

Dr. Stam's talk outlined the main ideas and ingredients of a unified dynamics solver and the challenges faced by current solutions which focus only on specific phenomenon, such as fluid flow, cloth, rigid bodies, and hair. Combined with live demostrations, the presentation included possible applications beyond computer graphics, such as physics-based shape design for architecture and nano-scale assemby of DNA strands. As well his presentation, Dr. Stam was also part of a panel discussion titled: "Is Quality of Life Better with New Media? What Will be Next?"

For more information about the event program, visit the 3D-Interactive Digital Media website.

Autodesk Research receives 2011 NSERC Synergy Award for Innovation with University of Toronto Graphics Laboratory
February 29, 2012 — Ottawa, Canada

On February 27th, Dr. Gordon Kurtenbach of Autodesk Research and Dr. Eugene Fiume of the University of Toronto jointly received an award honoring the twenty-year research collaboration between Autodesk Research and the University of Toronto Graphics Laboratory. At an annual awards ceremony, Canada’s Natural Sciences and Engineering Council (NSERC) recognizes the top research accomplishments and researchers in Canada. The Synergy Award for Innovation specifically recognizes exceptional partnerships between Canadian universities and industry researchers.

Gordon Kurtenbach, director of Autodesk’s Research group noted, “This is the Academy Awards for researchers in Canada. The history of our collaboration with University of Toronto is deep and broad. We’ve co-authored hundreds of research papers and jointly developed numerous technologies that are now part of Autodesk products. There’s a long history of graduate students coming from the University and doing great things at Autodesk, in some cases, resulting in Academy Awards for Scientific and Technical Achievement. Exceptional people have moved between our groups. Top researchers in their field, like Tovi Grossman, joined Autodesk from the University of Toronto while Ravin Balakrishnan, an elite human-computer interaction researcher at the University, began his research career with Autodesk Research. Autodesk is thrilled and honored to be recognized in this award.”

For more information about the award, read the NSERC Awards Announcement

For more information about the relationship between Autodesk Research and the University of Toronto Graphics Laboratory, read the History of Collaboration

Autodesk Researcher Invited to Present at C-BIP Brooklyn: Vectored Development Think Tank
February 25, 2012 — Brooklyn, New York, USA

Francesco Iorio, Senior Principal Research Scientist at Autodesk Research, was invited to give a presentation at the Columbia Building Intelligence Project (C-BIP) “Vectored Development” think tank, held ths year at the Powerhouse Arena in Brooklyn, New York on February 24th. Organized by the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP) at Columbia University, this sixth think tank's objective was to discuss and rethink the future of the building industry. Comprised of four 60-minute sessions followed by panel discussions, Iorio was part of the panel discussing "“The Design of Design software”.

For more information about the event, visit the GSAPP website.

Project Chronicle Demonstrated at AU 2011
December 6, 2011 — Las Vegas, NV, USA

George Fitzmaurice, Thomas White, and Tovi Grossman demonstrated an early preview of the current productization effort of Project Chronicle, at Autodesk University, 2011, in Las Vegas Nevada. Autodesk University is the world's premier Autodesk learning and networking event for designers, engineers, and industry and technology leaders.

Ramtin Attar Invited to Join Panel Discussion at Annual Meeting of the "Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture"
November 12, 2011 — Los Angeles, CA, USA

The ACSA Annual Meeting is a forum for architectural administrators to rethink existing educational models in light of dramatic changes in global, national and regional economies, demographics, regulation, technology and the environment. Ramtin Attar discussed the broad conceptual underpinnings of some existing trends in technological research that bear deep implications for how we evaluate design knowledge and intentions. He also highlighted how “before we can measure innovation as a function of design discipline, we need to find new measures of design learning and thinking so that we can better combine our fragmented views of design as a whole.

Autodesk Researchers show the important role of Design and Simulation for Sustainability
October 6, 2011 — Toronto, ON, Canada

In his article, “Swimming Upstream in Sustainable Design”, Autodesk researcher, Azam Khan, offers his insights on HCI sustainability efforts not only downstream (primarily focusing on consumption), but also the importance of including upstream considerations (primarily focusing on the design and manufacturing phases). Also, in the September/October issue of Architectural Design, Andrew Marsh and Azam Khan promote innovative directions for sustainability in the built environment in “Simulation and the Future of Design Tools for Ecological Research”. Along with the article, Autodesk was selected for the coveted cover image, a work developed together with fellow Autodesk scientist, Duncan Brinsmead.

Two Papers Accepted at Premiere Building Performance Simulation Event
September 9, 2011 — Sydney, Australia

Autodesk Researchers, Rhys Goldstein, Michael Glueck, Alex Tessier and Azam Khan, have their two papers, "Real-Time Compression of Time Series Building Performance Data" and "Space Layout in Occupant Behavior Simulation" accepted at the IBPSA-AIRAH Building Simulation 2011 Conference, held this year in Sydney, Australia. The conference, being held in mid-November, is considered the premiere event in the building performance simulation field.

Francesco Iorio's Collaboration on the Enumeration of Costas Arrays of Order 29 to be Published in "Advances in Mathematics of Communications" Journal
July 22, 2011

Konstantinos Drakakis, Francesco Iorio, Scott Rickard, and John Walsh will have their paper, "Results Of The Enumeration Of Costas Arrays Of Order 29" published in an upcoming issue of the Advances in Mathematics of Communications (AMC) journal, as a direct supplement of their earlier publication on Costas Arrays of order 28 and required a total of 366 CPU years to compute.

Autodesk Research Involved with Bioweathermap Project to Investigate Germ Diversity
July 15, 2011 — San Francisco, CA, USA

In collaboration with the Knight Lab (including George Church and Rob Knight) and the Personal Genome Project (with Jason Bobe), Autodesk Research helps codesign the demo application for the Bioweathermap project, a collaborative science initiative launched last year to collect and track residual microorganisms worldwide from the surface of paper currency using high-speed DNA sequencing. Read more about the project through Forbes.com

Autodesk Research Goes 5/5 at ACM UIST 2011
June 24, 2011 — Santa Barbara, California, USA

The User Interface Research Group had all five of their research paper submissions to the ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST) accepted for publication. UIST is one of the most prestigious and competitive conferences in the field of human-computer interaction, and will take place in October of 2011, in Santa Barbara, CA. The papers will be presented by Autodesk Researchers Justin Matejka and Wei Li, and Autodesk Research Interns Michael Ekstrand, Jennifer Fernquist, and Michelle Annett.

The accepted papers are:

IP-QAT: In-Product Questions, Answers & Tips
Justin Matejka, Tovi Grossman, George Fitzmaurice

Medusa: A Proximity-Aware Multi-touch Tabletop
Michelle Annett, Tovi Grossman, Daniel Wigdor, George Fitzmaurice

Sketch-Sketch Revolution: An Engaging Tutorial System for Guided Sketching and Application Learning
Jennifer Fernquist, Tovi Grossman, George Fitzmaurice

TwitApp: In-product Micro-Blogging for Design Sharing
Wei Li, Tovi Grossman, Justin Matejka, George Fitzmaurice

Searching for Software Learning Resources using Application Context
Michael Ekstrand, Wei Li, Tovi Grossman, Justin Matejka, George Fitzmaurice

Paper accepted at the MARC Symposium
June 15, 2011 — Ettlingen, Germany

Autodesker researcher, Francesco Iorio, in collaboration with Marco Fais have their paper “Fast Fluid Dynamics on the Single-chip Cloud Computer” accepted at the 3rd Annual Many-core Applications Research Community (MARC) Syposium, an event which promotes research and scientific exchange within the domain of many-core applications research including Intel's SCC experts and MARC researchers. Fais will be presenting the work at the event, which will take place at the Fraunhofer-Institut für Optronik, Systemtechnik und Bildauswertung (IOSB) in Ettlingen, Germany on July 5-6, 2011.

Rhys Goldstein to Speak at "Symposium on Occupancy & Plug Loads in Building Simulation"
May 18, 2011 — Boston, MA, USA

Among speakers from both academia and industry, Rhys Goldstein, a member of the Environment & Ergonomics Research Group at Autodesk will present his work, "Using Machine Language to Create Customizable Occupant Models", on evening of May 19th at the Symposium on Occupancy & Plug Loads in Building Simulation. The speaker session, hosted by the Boston Chapter of the International Building Performance Simulation Association (IBPSA-USA), will include presentations and an open discussion on the challenges and current best practices in accurately capturing building occupancy and plug load intensities within building energy models.

6 Papers Presented by the User Interface Research Group at ACM CHI 2011
May 12, 2011 — Vancouver, Canada

6 Papers published by the User Interface Research Group were recently presented at the ACM CHI 2011 conference in Vancouver, Canada. This included 4 presentations by past research interns: Xiaojun Bi from University of Toronto, Xing-dong Yang from University of Alberta, and Parmit Chilana from University of Washington, who presented two.

Autodesk Researcher Jos Stam to Present Paper at SIGGRAPH 2011
May 9, 2011 — Vancouver, Canada

Autodesk researchers, Jos Stam and Ryan Schmidt, have their paper "On the Velocity of an Implicit Surface" accepted in the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Transactions on Graphics where they "derive an equation for the velocity of an arbitrary time-evolving implicit surface". The paper will also be presented at SIGGRAPH 2011, the International Conference and Exhibition on Computer Graphics and Interactive Technologies, being held between August 7th and 11th at the Vancouver Convention Centre in Vancouver, Canada.

Azam Khan Invited as Visiting Professor at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts School of Architecture.
May 3, 2011 — Copenhagen, Denmark

Via the VELUX Visiting Professorship Programme and a 1 million kroner grant from the VILLUM FOUNDATION, Autodesk's Head of the Environment and Ergonomic Research Group, Azam Khan is amongst seven leading international researchers invited for visiting professorship at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts School of Architecture (RASA). Established in 1998, the professor programme looks to promote the development of international research networks, and, strengthen Danish research and education by supplementing the research and teaching environment with international experience and industry knowledge.

Azam Khan to Give Talk at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) during Graphical VisionDay
April 28, 2011 — Copenhagen, Denmark

Head of Environment and Ergonomic Research, Azam Khan will give a lecture about Digital Prototyping -- discussing the value of designing, modeling, and simulating "as a method of experiencing design before committing to expensive manufacturing" -- at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) on May 13th during the Graphical VisionDay in Copenhagen. Hosted by DTU Informatics and Mathematical Modelling, the presentation and demonstration series includes the MATLS Conference, Industrial, Graphical and Medical VisionDay; the Graphical portion focusing on universities, organizations and companies with an interest in computer graphics.

Jos Stam and Azam Khan to Speak at DANSIS' Accelerated Fluid Dynamics in Games, Movies and Industry Seminar Series
April 28, 2011 — Copenhagen, Denmark

On May 18th, Autodesk Senior Research Scientist, Jos Stam, will be in Copenhagen to give a talk about "Fluid Dynamics for Film and Games" at the Danish Society for Industrial Fluid Dynamics' (DANSIS) seminar series being held on the campus of the Technical University of Denmark (DTU). Following his presentation, Head of Environment and Ergonomics Research, Azam Khan, will give his presentation titled "Maya Fluids: From Research to Applications".

Autodesk Researcher to present at the upcoming International Summit on Human Simulation
April 25, 2011 — St. Pete, Florida

Working with Azam Khan, Anne Agur and Karan Singh, Jacobo Bibliowicz will present their paper titled, "High-Performance Surface Reconstruction of Human Bones from Point-Sampled Data", discussing the rationale and results of using laser scanning as part of their digitizing process and reconstruction pipeline, at this year's International Summit on Human Simulation (ISHS), being held this year in St. Pete, Florida on May 26th and 27th.

Ramtin Attar will collaborate with McGill School of Architecture and Arup Engineering as part of a recent SSHRC grant
March 29, 2011 — Toronto, ON, Canada

Led by professor Michael Jemtrud, McGill School of Architecture is awarded $197600 funded over three years by SSHRC (The Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada) to pursue a proposed research entitled, Modeling the Methodologies of Our Time. The goal of this research is to investigate the productive and demonstrative characteristics at play in architectural design methodologies. As the industry partner involved in this grant, Ramtin Attar will collaborate on this research to lend Autodesk’s expertise in applied research and practical insight into the work. This research will be a collaborative effort among McGill School of Architecture, Arup Engineering and Autodesk Research.

Paper accepted at the TechConnect World 2011 Conference
March 9, 2011 — Boston, MA, USA

At the TechConnect World Conference and Expo 2011, Wei Zhao, and Autodesk researcher, Carlos Oguin, have their paper entitled, "From Games and Films to Molecular Simulation and Design" accepted for oral presentation. Host of the BioNanotech, Clean Technology, MicroTech, NanoTech, and TechConnect conferences, the World Conference will be held later this year at the Hynes Convention Center, in Boston, Massachusetts, between June 13th and 16th and will focus on "matching innovative solutions to real world technology challenges".

Ramtin Attar will represent Environment & Ergonomic Group’s research at CanNord 2011
March 1, 2011 — Toronto, ON, Canada

On March 23rd, Autodesk Research's Ramtin Attar will represent Environment & Ergonomic Group’s research at CanNord 2011 in Toronto. The CanNord 2011 conference on Sustainable Solutions for Urban Life will highlight the challenges in creating sustainable urban solutions. This conference is a joint venture between the City of Toronto and Nordic cities.

Jos Stam "humble" about Autodesk's Contribution to the Film Industry
February 25, 2011

Jos Stam, Autodesk senior research scientist, was quoted by FastCompany.com's Silicon Valley reporter, E.B. Boyd, as saying, “We create these tools and I’m always amazed by what the artists can do with them. It’s like creating brushes and then seeing a Rembrandt. You can improve the brushes, but it still takes an artist to really create amazing effects.” The inventor of Maya Fluid Effects continues, "Our job is to hide all the math."

This year alone, Autodesk's software was used in each of the movies nominated for Best Visual Effects at the 2011 Academy Awards, including Alice in Wonderland, Harry Potter and the the Deathly Hallows (Part 1), Hereafter, Inception. and Iron Man 2. The full article, "Autodesk: The Secret Star Behind Oscar-Winning Visual Effects", can be found on FastCompany.com's website.

Autodesk Software Engineer has paper accepted at SOCG 2011
February 18, 2011 — Paris, France

Autodesk Software Engineer, Benoit Hudson, in collaboration with Umut Acar and Duru Turkoglu, have their paper accepted at the Symposium on Computational Geometry (SOCG 2011), to be held in Paris, France, later this year. Entitled, “Kinetic Mesh Refinement in 2D”, the preliminary paper gives a brief description of mesh refinement, the challenge of kinetic mesh refinement, and offers a kinetic data structure that is compact, responsive and efficient. The full paper will be available in June in the Proceedings of the 27th ACM Symposium on Computational Geometry.

Ramtin Attar Invited Talk at Society for Environmental Graphic Design (SEGD) Annual Conference
February 17, 2011 — Montreal, QC, Canada

Ramtin Attar is invited to present a lecture during the Society for Environmental Graphic Design's (SEGD) Annual Conference, being held between June 1st and 4th, 2011. SEGD represents a global community of people who work at the intersection of communication design and the built environment. The theme for SEGD 2011 conference will focus on the important role of diversity and collaboration in design.

Paper to appear in AIEDAM Journal (Special Issue on Representing and Reasoning About 3D Space)
February 8, 2011

Autodesk Research's Environment & Ergonomics group have their paper, entitled "Considering Multiscale Scenes to Elucidate Problems Encumbering 3D Intellection and Navigation", accepted for publication in the Artificial Intelligence for Engineering Design, Analysis and Manufacturing (AIEDAM) Special Issue on Representing and Reasoning About 3D Space. The special issue will explore the various approaches, challenges and opportunities in representing and navigating 3D spaces.

Paper accepted at ASHRAE 2011 annual conference
February 7, 2011 — Montreal, QC, Canada

The Environment & Ergonomics group at Autodesk Research have their paper titled "Sensor-Enabled Cubicles for Occupant-Centric Capture of Building Performance Data" accepted for publication at ASHAE 2011. ASHRAE’s 2011 conference focuses on alternative technologies, engineering tools and Net-Zero buildings.

Invited talk entitled "The Future of Rendering" given at the "Trends in Visual Computing 2011" Symposium
January 26, 2011 — Vienna, Austria

On January 26, 2011, Jos Stam, Head of Simulation and Graphics Research presented his talk entitled “The Future of Rendering” at the "Trends in Visual Computing 2011" symposium in Vienna, Austria. At the symposium, invited experts offered their opinions on future developments in the area of Visual Computing, including ongoing challenges and opportunities as well as opening channels of discussion regarding the scientific, technical and industrial trends.

Autodesk to sponsor International Bio-Molecular Design Competition
January 25, 2011

Autodesk is proud to sponsor the International Bio-Molecular Design Competition (BIOMOD 2011), a competition for undergraduate students to conceive, construct and analyze their designs at the nanometer scale. With registration starting in the spring and development during the summer, all participating teams will have the opportunity to travel and present their work at Harvard University's Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering in early November during the competition Jamboree.

Autodesk Research participates in University of Waterloo's "Living Cities: Vision and Method" Lecture Series
January 20, 2011 — Waterloo, ON, Canada

Azam Khan, Head of the Environment and Ergonomics Research group, will give his presentation, "Scale and Scalability", at the University of Waterloo's "Living Cities: Vision and Method" lecture series. He will discuss building visualization platforms and their affect on living and sustainability, as well as dimensions that scale from single buildings to neighborhoods to cities.

Six Papers Accepted to the ACM CHI 2011 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
January 11, 2011 — Vancouver, B.C., Canada

Six papers from the User Interface Research Group have been accepted to the ACM CHI 2011 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, which is the premiere conference for Human-Computer Interaction research. This will give Autodesk Research a strong showing at the conference, which takes place in Vancouver, BC, in May, 2011.

Journal paper accepted for publication in ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI)
January 7, 2011

HCI researchers at Autodesk Research and the University of Minnesota have had their paper “Design and Evaluation of a Command Recommendation System for Software Applications” accepted by ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI). This work adapts the modern recommender system technology to aid command awareness in complex software applications.

Ramtin Attar's AIA TAP 2010 Talk covered by AECbytes Newsletter
December 6, 2010 — Washington, D.C., USA

Autodesk Research's Ramtin Attar presented, "Extending Building Information Modeling to Real-Time Building Performance Monitoring", in the first plenary at the annual AIA TAP (Technologies, Alliances, and Practices) Conference held in Washington, D.C. on November 12, 2010. Concluded with a panel discussion including Autodesk VP Phil Bernstein on how BIM can be used to facilitate Integrated Project Delivery (IPD), Ramtin's presentation discussed how Autodesk Research is working on a project that will integrate detailed BIM models with sensor networks to aggregate data and develop building performance solutions that will help building owners and operators more effectively manage energy usage and waste.

For more details about the presentation and the conference, read the AECbytes Newsletter.

Information about the research project can be found at http://www.digital210king.org/ or the Project Dasher webpage.

Autodesk Helps Students Win Annual iGEM Synthetic Biology Competition
November 26, 2010 — Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

As a partner level sponsor of the International Genetically Engineered Machines (iGEM) Competition held in early November at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Autodesk provided students with free licenses of Maya to help synthetic biologists design and visualize their designs and creations, including the grand-prize winning team from Slovenia and finalist from the University of Cambridge.

For more information, visit Autodesk's AREA (the Digital Entertainment and Visualization Community), the Autodesk News Room, or the Autodesk Research Nanotechnology website.

Francesco Iorio's Collaboration on the Enumeration of Costas Arrays to be Published in AMC Journal
November 16, 2010

“The Enumeration of Costas arrays of Order 28” by Konstantinos Drakakis, Francesco Iorio and Scott Rickard has been accepted for publication and will appear in the February 2011 issue of the journal “Advances in Mathematics of Communications”. Costas arrays are useful in their application within sonar and radar technology.

Ramtin Attar invited lecture at the University of Toronto
October 13, 2010 — Toronto, ON, Canada

Autodesk researcher Ramtin Attar was invited to give a lecture at the Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design. Ramtin's lecture focused on the role of sustainability as a shared narrative to move away from a domain-specific view of innovation. Ramtin also presented an overview of our current research on BIM-based building performance monitoring as an enabling technology in dealing with complex issues around sustainability and built environment.

Ramtin Attar presentation at New Technologies, Alliances, Practices conference.
September 8, 2010 — Washington, D.C., USA

Ramtin Attar will be presenting at New Technologies, Alliances, Practices Conference organized by the American Institute of Architects (AIA) in collaboration with International Facility Management Association. This presentation is titled Extending Building Information Modeling to Real-Time Building Performance Monitoring and is scheduled for November 2010 at AIA National Headquarters in Washington, DC.

Azam Khan Invited Talk at Columbia University's Post Parametric Lecture Series
August 31, 2010 — New York, New York, USA

Azam Khan Invited Talk on November 8th, 2010, from 6:30PM until 8:00PM in Wood Auditorium (Avery Hall) at Columbia University's Post Parametric Lecture Series co-presented by the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP) & the Department of Computer Science (2010).

Autodesk Research invited journal paper for the International Journal of Architectural Computing
August 20, 2010

Environment & Ergonomics researchers at Autodesk Research have been invited to submit an extended version of their paper "Physics-based Generative Design" to a special issue of the International Journal of Architectural Computing (IJAC). This paper is titled “Embedded Rationality: A Unified Simulation Framework for Interactive Form-Finding” , and will appear in 2010.

Best Paper Award at SimBuild 2010 Conference
August 13, 2010 — New York, New York, USA

Researchers Rhys Goldstein, Alex Tessier and Azam Khan at Autodesk Research received the Best Paper Award at SimBuild 2010 for their paper “Customizing the Behavior of Interacting Occupants using Personas”. SimBuild is the IBPSA USA biannual conference and was held in New York City. Rhys Goldstein presented the paper on this topical issue in building simulation.

Paper by User Interface Research Group to be published at UIST 2010
June 25, 2010 — New York, New York, USA

Autodesk User Interface Research Group members, Tovi Grossman, Justin Matejka and George Fitzmaurice, will have their paper, "Chronicle: Capture, Exploration, and Playback of Document Workflow Histories", published at this year's premier conference on human-computer interfaces, UIST 2010 held this year in New York City in early October.

The ACM Magazine for Students features article by Gord Kurtenbach
June 21, 2010

Gord Kurtenbach, Autodesk's Director of Research, is featured in the Summer 2010 issue of XRDS: Crossroads, the ACM Magazine for Students with his article, "Pen-Based Computing". In his article, he writes, "Pens may seem old-fashioned, but some researchers think they are the future of interaction."

Autodesk Research among presenters at the Autodesk Technical Summit ACRD 2010
June 9, 2010 — Shanghai, China

Autodesk's Director of Research, Gord Kurtenbach, and team members, George Fitzmaurice (Head of User Interface Research), Francesco Iorio (Head of High Performance Computing Research), and Azam Khan (Head of Environment and Ergonomics Research) presented some of their ideas at the Autodesk Technical Summit ACRD 2010, held on June 9th and 10th in Shanghai, China. The event is seen as an opportunity to celebrate and share ideas, innovations and experiences at Autodesk.

The topics covered:

• Common Myths of 3D User Interfaces (Gord Kurtenbach)
• Learning and User Interface Research Projects (George Fitzmaurice)
• Exploiting Computing Accelerators For Multidisciplinary Design Organization (Francesco Iorio), and
• BIM-based 3D Building Dashboards (Azam Khan)

Graphics Keynote given by Jos Stam at Graphics Interface 2010
June 1, 2010 — Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

At the 36th Annual Graphics Interface Conference held in Ottawa, Canada, Graphics Keynote and Autodesk research scientist Jos Stam presented his paper "Nucleus: A Framework for a Unified Dynamics Solver". The event is the oldest continuously-scheduled conference in the field and attracts papers on innovations and advances in the study of human-computer interactive systems and graphics from around the world.

Autodesk becomes an iGEM Sponsoring Partner
May 29, 2010

"Autodesk, Inc., a world leader in 2D and 3D design, engineering, and entertainment software, has joined as an iGEM sponsoring partner. Autodesk will provide iGEM teams with Autodesk Maya® to help animate and simulate in 3D the cell structures used in their projects."

Paper Presented at eSim 2010
May 19, 2010 — eSim 2010, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

Autodesk Researchers Ebenezer Hailemariam and Ramtin Attar attended eSim 2010 in Winnipeg, Canada. Ebenezer presented Toward a Unified Representation System of Performance-related Data Describing a New Framework for Visualization of Building Performance Data describing a new framework for visualization of building performance data.

Azam Khan Invited Talk at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories
May 14, 2010 — Berkeley, California

On May 14, Autodesk senior research scientist Azam Khan presented a talk entitled “Challenges in providing analysis tools and managing information in the design and operation of buildings” to the Environmental Energy Technologies Division at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab in Berkeley, CA. This talk discussed how building dashboard systems are becoming more common in an effort to expose and measure the operational efficiency of a building. However, we go beyond current graphical or floor-plan dashboards and examine advanced 3D real-time sensor-network visualizations as part of a building debugging tool to improve building efficiency.

Paper Accepted at SimBuild 2010 Conference
May 7, 2010 — New York, NY, USA

The Autodesk Research paper “Customizing the Behavior of Interacting Occupants using Personas” will be presented at SimBuild 2010, a conference on the simulation of buildings.

Azam Khan Invited Talk at the Institute for Human & Machine Cognition
May 5, 2010 — Pensacola, Florida

On May 18, Autodesk senior research scientist Azam Khan will present a talk entitled “Simulation for Sustainability” at the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition in Pensacola, FL. This talk will present, within the realm of building efficiency, an approach to develop an advanced systems-based building simulation framework that will support multi-disciplinary cooperation and collaboration to accelerate progress on minimizing building resource consumption and GHG emissions, while maximizing occupant comfort.

Three Papers Presented to CHI 2010 Conference
April 20, 2010 — Atlanta, GA, USA

Autodesk Research presented three technical research papers at the ACM CHI 2010 - the premiere conference for Human-Computer Interaction. Two of the papers were nominated for Best Paper Award. The three papers include:

1. ToolClips - An Investigation of Contextual Video Assistance for Functionality Understanding [Best Paper Award Nominee]
2. MouseLight: Bimanual Interactions on Digital Paper Using a Pen and a spatially-aware Mobile Projector [Best paper Award Nominee]
3. The Design and Evaluation of Multitouch Marking Menus

Azam Khan Keynote at VRIPHYS 2010
April 5, 2010 — Copenhagen, Denmark

At VRIPHYS 2010: 7th Workshop on Virtual Reality Interaction and Physical Simulation, Azam Khan, Head of the Environment & Ergonomics will be presenting a keynote talk entitled: Designing Emergent Behaviour.

Paper accepted at eSim 2010 conference
March 8, 2010 — Winnipeg, MB, Canada

The Environment & Ergonomics group at Autodesk Research have their paper titled "Toward a unified representation system of performance-related data" accepted for publication at eSim 2010.

Paper to be published on the IBM Journal of Research and Development
January 5, 2010

A paper by Autodesk Research high-performance computing scientist Francesco Iorio et al. entitled "Asymmetric flow control for data transfer in hybrid computing systems" will be published in the January/February 2010 issue of Network-Optimized Computing of the IBM Journal of Research and Development, a very prestigious Computer Science research publication.

Three Papers Accepted to CHI 2010 Conference
December 14, 2009 — Atlanta, GA, USA

Autodesk Research will have three technical research papers presented at the ACM CHI 2010 - the premiere conference for Human-Computer Interaction. The three papers include:

1. ToolClips - An Investigation of Contextual Video Assistance for Functionality Understanding
2. MouseLight: Bimanual Interactions on Digital Paper Using a Pen and a spatially-aware Mobile Projector
3. The Design and Evaluation of Multitouch Marking Menus

Gordon Kurtenbach appointed research chair of Networks of Centres of Excellence
December 11, 2009 — Toronto, ON, Canada

Autodesk's Director of Research, Dr. Gordon Kurtenbach has been appointed as Chair of the research committee overseeing the Graphics, Animation and New meDia "GRAND" Network - a $23.2 million research initiative funded over five years as part of Canada's Centres of Excellence.

The "GRAND" network is part of the Networks of Centres of Excellence (NCE) program funded by the Canadian government and consists of research projects and researchers from universities and industries across Canada. Led by scientific director Dr. Kellogg Booth from the University of British Columbia, GRAND will offer student learning and research opportunities and will comprise 30 projects clustered around five themes:

• New Media Challenges and Opportunities;
• Games and Interactive Simulation;
• Animation, Graphics and Imaging;
• Cross-cutting themes of Social, Legal, Economic and Cultural Perspectives; and
• Enabling Technologies and Methodologies.

The network will involve 50 investigators along with collaborating researchers and industry partners. It is funded with $23.2 million over five years and headquartered at the Centre for Digital Media at Great Northern Way Campus (GNWC), a joint academic collaboration between UBC, Simon Fraser University, Emily Carr University of Art + Design and the British Columbia Institute of Technology.

Canada's NCE program brings together Canadian scientists and researchers in the natural, social, health and engineering sciences, as well as others in Canada's academic, corporate, public and non-profit sectors, to focus on issues critical to Canadian industry, society and economy.

The Canadian government is investing $125 million in Networks of Centres of Excellence as well as Centres of Excellence for Commercialization and Research (CECR) to help researchers develop their findings into new practical, applied and marketable solutions and will also facilitate and advance the commercialization of technologies, products and services for the benefit of all Canadians.

http://www.publicaffairs.ubc.ca/2009/12/01/ubc-to-host-new-national-research-networks/
http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/Government-Of-Canada-1084006.html
http://www.grand-nce.ca/public/

Ramtin Attar invited lecture at the University of Toronto
November 17, 2009 — Toronto, ON, Canada

Autodesk researcher Ramtin Attar was invited to give a lecture at the Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design. Ramtin's lecture focused on the importance of technical research and discovery in creating a horizon under which a shift in our methods, presumptions and dynamics need to occur before we can address some of the key design challenges in today's world. By providing an outline of Autodesk's key strategic research areas, Ramtin also presented an overview of our current research on simulation as an enabling technology in dealing with complex issues around sustainability and design.

Autodesk Fluid top free app in UK!
October 5, 2009

Autodesk Research scientist Jos Stam created the Autodesk Fluid iPhone / iPod touch App that is currently the #1 Free App in the U.K. iTunes Store!

Francesco Iorio presentation at CECAM Workshop
October 2, 2009 — CECAM Workshop, Lugano, Switzerland

High-performance Computing researcher Francesco Iorio at Autodesk Research presents "Algorithms re-engineering as a fundamental step towards exploitable hybrid computing for engineering simulations" at workshop entitled "Algorithmic Re-Engineering for Modern Non-Conventional Processing Units" in Lausanne, Switzerland co-organized by CECAM - Centre Européen de Calcul Atomique et Moléculaire and IBM Research.

3D Drawing paper to be published at Siggraph Asia 2009
September 20, 2009 — Toronto, ON, Canada

Graphics researchers at Autodesk Research and the DGP Lab at the University of Toronto have had their paper Analytic Drawing of 3D Scaffolds accepted at SIGGRAPH ASIA 2009. The paper will be presented in Yokohama, Japan in December, and also appear in the ACM journal Transactions on Graphics. This work introduces a new approach to sketch-based 3D design, based on traditional perspective drawing techniques, in particular Analytic Drawing. This approach leads to more robust techniques for constrained inference , allowing artists to draw complex scaffolds of lines and curves from a single view.

Invited Paper
August 20, 2009 — Toronto, ON, Canada

Graphics researchers at Autodesk Research have been invited to submit an extended version of their paper "On Expert Performance in 3D Curve-Drawing Tasks" to a special issue of the journal Computers and Graphics. This issue will include four other papers from SBIM 2009, and will appear in 2010.

Jos Stam Keynote at IEEE CAD/Graphic '09
August 18, 2009 — IEEE CAD/Graphic '09, Yellow Mountain, China

At IEEE CAD/Graphic '09 conference in China, Dr. Jos Stam of Autodesk Research presented his keynote titled "Nucleus: Towards a Unified Dynamics Solver for Computer Graphics".

In this talk Dr. Stam presented some research he has done over the past few years in developing a unified dynamics solver for computer graphics. Currently many solvers are specialized for a given phenomenon such as fluid flow, cloth, rigid bodies, hair, etc. Having these different solvers interact is sometimes problematic. He proposes to model all matter as a linked particle system having the topology of a simplicial complex.

Paper Presented at SBIM 2009
August 2, 2009 — SBIM'09, New Orleans, LA, USA

Autodesk Research Intern Ryan Schmidt presented "On Expert Performance in 3D Curve-Drawing Tasks", at Sketch-Based Interfaces and Modeling Symposium (SBIM 2009), co-located with SIGGRAPH 2009 in New Orleans, USA.

The paper, with co-authors Azam Khan, Dr. Gordon Kurtenbach from Autodesk Research and Dr. Karan Singh from University of Toronto, explores perceptual issues in sketch-based 3D design interfaces revealing some fundamental insights into how accurately humans can freehand draw, even with training. These insights are important considerations to improve the effectiveness of using free form drawing to create accurate 3d models.

Paper Presented at CAAD Futures 2009
June 24, 2009 — CAAD Futures 2009, Montreal, QC, Canada

Autodesk Research scientists Ramtin Attar and Azam Khan attended CAAD Futures 2009 in Montreal, Canada. Ramtin presented Physic-based Generative Design describing new approaches to form finding based on the concept of a unified physics-based solver.

Papers Accepted UIST and SBIM Conferences
June 9, 2009

The Autodesk Research HCI team have their paper on the Community Commands recommender system accepted for publication at UIST 2009. Also Graphics researchers at Autodesk Research have their study on Expert Performance for 3D Curve Drawing accepted at SBIM 2009.

Journal Article Published on Large Display Research
April 21, 2009

The Autodesk Research group has had their 35 page article on Large-Display research, entitled Toward the Digital Design Studio: Large Display Explorations, published in a Special Issue on Ubiquitous Multi-Display Environments of Human-Computer Interaction, one of the oldest and most prestigious journals of the field.

Presenting Three Papers at CHI'09 with Nomination for Best Paper
April 4, 2009 — SIGCHI 2009, Boston, MA, USA

At ACM SIGCHI 2009, the premiere conference for Human-Computer Interaction, Autodesk Research authors will present three papers given by Tovi Grossman, Justin Matejka, and Hyunyoung Song.

Azam Khan Keynote at SpringSim'09
March 22, 2009 — SIGSIM SpringSim'09, San Diego, CA, USA

At the ACM SIGSIM SpringSim 2009 Conference, Azam Khan of Autodesk Research will present his Keynote Talk entitled: Systems Architecture: Learning from Systems Biology in Architecture and Urban Design.

Gord Kurtenbach Keynote at SaskInteractive Summit09
March 19, 2009 — SaskInteractive Summit09, Saskatoon, SK, Canada

At this years SaskInteractive Summit 2009, Gord Kurtenbach, Director of Autodesk Research, will present the Keynote Talk.

Gord Kurtenbach Keynote at 3DUI
March 14, 2009 — 3DUI 2009, Lafayette, LA, USA

At this years IEEE 3D UI Conference, Gord Kurtenbach, Director of Autodesk Research, will present the Keynote Talk entitled: The Inner Child of 3DUI Research.

Azam Khan Invited Talk at SE'09
March 2, 2009 — SE 2009, Kaiserslautern, Germany

As part of Software Engineering '09 in Kaiserslautern, Germany, Autodesk Research's Azam Khan has been invited to present his paper with Justin Matejka on The Role of Visualization in the Naturalization of Remote Software Immigrants.

Presenting Two Papers at i3D'09
February 26, 2009 — i3D 2009, Boston, MA, USA

At the ACM SIGGRAPH Symposium on Interactive 3D Graphics and Games 2009, from February 27 to March 1, 2009 in Boston, MA, Autodesk Research authors Michael Glueck and James McCrae from the University of Toronto will present papers on Multiscale 3D Reference Visualization and Multiscale 3D Navigation.