Autodesk
Generative Approach towards Designing

The aviation industry has constantly been innovating to manufacture light-weight carriers while simultaneously improving its strength and payload capacity. When a leading aircraft manufacturer, Airbus felt the same need while designing the jetliner of 2050—a lighter, more fuel efficient, eco-friendly, with more room for passengers, the need for innovation grew. With the development of this jetliner prototype, the crew focused onto developing an eco-friendly, cabin partition that separated passenger’s compartment with the aircrafts galley. “Along with meeting the design constraints, the cabin partition needs to be light, strong, and not more than an inch thick,” posits Airbus Emerging Technology and Concept group while designing their Airbus A320 cabin. To design and develop such a cabin partition, Airbus kept the challenge on the table of Autodesk Research, an Autodesk Lab to innovate and learn prototyping tools. Leveraging Autodesk’s generative approach and initiative in designing the cabin partition with 3D printing and AI algorithms, Airbus built the partition meeting all design requirements.

Talking about the latest technology initiative, Carl Bass, CEO, Autodesk says, “Our main technology initiative is leveraging generative design and IoT. Further we take this approach towards the latest 3D printing technology, while injecting those initiatives onto the cloud.” Autodesk has been constantly innovative in helping their clients by combining decades of experience. Bass states, “Autodesk has been involved in, construction and engineering software for over long 30 years, and are positioning ourselves to lead the next generation of this kind of software.”

Autodesk offers SaaS solutions for Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) enterprises, which can be hosted on cloud with cost effective annual subscriptions. By adding more value and flexibility, Autodesk designs essential tools, which are required for today’s businesses. Autodesk has a wide range of Building Information Modeling tools (BIM) which are developed for perfection. The tools include collection of important software, which are specifically built for BIM, starting from architectural designing, MEP to structure designing and construction.

Our main technology initiative is leveraging generative design and IoT onto our software

Revit, AutoCAD Civil 3D, InfraWorks 360 are some of the BIM software, which are offered by Autodesk for AEC businesses. All these software are built with simplicity to ease customers in building their concept into reality. Users can get their workflow started from parametric design to the final design with interoperable tools to support and collaborate. Being purpose-built for BIM offers a real-time view of all the phases of a building life cycle, starting from design to the final construction.

The BIM tools also offer document controlling features, helping enterprises in easily managing and securing their corporate construction and other structural designs. Additionally, the access to cloud has made the tools mobile and flexible in terms of scaling geographical locations. “Moving to the cloud is going to fundamentally change how we do it. It's going to be using the supercomputer that's in your pocket and the table that's on your job site to a million cores in a data center somewhere,” explains Bass talking about Autodesk’s innovative technology innovations this year.

Working towards injecting innovation into BIM tools and embedding it with the latest technologies—cloud, big data, and IoT, Autodesk in the near future plans to further move deeper into bringing the concept into reality. As augmented reality is trending among various continuums in offering best visual experience, Autodesk has integrated this technology into HoloLens, which is a smart helmet to offer greater insights for the construction builders who work on construction sites. This helps businesses to reduce downtime to market and minimizes ideal time, which is taken to compare the actual and concept design. Autodesk visions a future where prospect buyers wear such smart helmets while buying homes.