Autodesk and Digital Fabrication + Building Information Modeling

Autodesk and Digital Fabrication. At Autodesk University 2011 in Las Vegas Autodesk CTO, Jeff Kowalski, discussed five waves of technology disruption including digital fabrication in his keynote presentation.



Jeffrey McGrew of Because We Can discussed his experience with digital fabrication. Click here to begin the video with Jeff's presentation (if the link doesn't work simply move ahead to 23m 38s in the keynote video). Jeff also gave a presentation on Five Common Pitfalls and Misconceptions of Digital Fabrication from BIM at the event but it wasn't recorded. Jeff's 20 page presentation from Autodesk University 2009 "From Fabulous to Fabrication: Real-World Digital Fabrication and BIM" is available here.


Mark Hatch, CEO of Techshop, discussed the democratization of digital fabrication and the open-access chain of workshops Techshop is opening across the country. Click here to begin the video with Mark's talk (if the link doesn't work simply move to 29m 37s in the keynote video). Here is a post on Mark's talk from Core77.

And here is Autodesk CEO Carl Bass speaking with Vivek Wadhwa about Innovation and Manufacturing at a Singularity University event in January 2012.



The entire interview is almost an hour long, jump to minute 47:25 for Carl's answer to "How does new manufacturing change architecture?" Direct link to his answer here:

http://youtu.be/Chaj7iK-lt8?t=47m25s

Fabricators know this. And are collaborating with innovative architects interested in building the future - and the future of building.

And here is a link to a video with Autodesk Labs VP Brian Mathews showing a 3D printed motorcycle.

Autodesk does offer a "Using BIM for Fabrication" as a BIM Workshop in the "Extending BIM Beyond Design" series which references many other resources including relevant websites like this linkedin group, "BIM + Digital Fabrication = Smart Building"

Also see some of the Customer Stories at the Autodesk - Building Products, Equipment and Fabrication page and this post from Cadalyst on BIM and Digital Fabrication (1-2-3 Revit Tutorial).

If your interest is the digital fabrication of buildings, I highly recommend this video with Fabian Scheurer of Design To Production on

How to Fabricate

Fabian Scheurer (Design To Production) at the Digital Crafting Symposium 1 from CITA on Vimeo.

I also recommend the video below by David Fano of CASE from the Autodesk Yale University BIM Symposium