ONE WORD DESCRIBES THE ENTIRE AU2021 EVENT: FORGE
2021-10-14
Autodesk University ended last week for the Americas and EMEA regions and ends today for the APAC one.
The event, although limited by the fact that it was virtual, was a blast. Several insightful classes were presented and the live Q&A format that was adopted this year helped attendees and presenters connect and reduce that distance. The chat sections were always full of questions and interaction between attendees, and being able to connect through the platform was great.
What I really like about the event was that it proved that our futuristic vision at Bird Tools was the right one: by early adopting Forge and presenting classes about our developed Forge workflows at both AU 2020 and AU 2021, we foresaw the global vision that Autodesk has for the future of our industry. In fact, I almost felt that Autodesk was rebranding as Forge, as all keynote and general sessions were about Forge.
What we’ve learned is that Forge is the way Autodesk is going. Everything will be cloud based, and data will be decentralized and cloud stored. Platforms will be web based, and file formats are going obsolete.
As a first step, a new Forge API, the Forge Data eXchange API, was revealed at the Forge roadmap session, and its purpose is to initiate that transition, going from a file-based workflow, into a data driven one. That is awesome, as currently having everything stored within a packed file would slow down any future cloud-based process, while having a decentralized cloud database would provide faster access to information and greater interoperability across disciplines.
For products such as Revit, hearing about the upcoming integration with Power Automate is beyond exciting: live linking models with Power BI or Slack or Microsoft Teams is just awesome (although to be fair, it’s currently possible through the Revit API, and the greatest proof of concept is Raven).
Finding building carbon footprints will also be possible within Revit through the new Revit Total Carbon feature which was announced at the AEC keynote session.
In short, the near future looks promising.
Speaking of the future, I was joined by “Ghida” of “EMDC Group” to talk about advanced Forge and Revit API processes that are currently being integrated by Bird Tools and that, and based on AU 2021, will be the way to go for the entire AEC industry in the years to come.
The class was magnificent, and what made it awesome were its live attendees and their awesome interaction in the chat, which gave it an in person feel. I was thrilled to see everyone engage with questions, volunteering to share answers and knowledge and links to external resources, and even lighten up the mood by sharing a couple of jokes and interacting with our occasional ones! It was both entertaining and insightful.
We don’t know how many joined in as we were at 500+ registered attendees, but many reached out later on reporting that they weren’t able to join in because the class was full, something I wasn’t aware of until after the session.
For those of you who “rocked” back then, we salute you! For those who weren’t able to attend, you missed the experience of your lives…. No worries, you can still catch the recorded on-demand session here, and the chat and questions and answers are still there so you can get a feel of what it was like.
Can’t wait for AU2022!
