7530km, 3 flights and over 20 hours of travel … this is where our journey to AU started !
After 2 years of virtual AU waiting for the opportunity to take part of this event, time as come and not least because the class I proposed a few months ago has been selected !
Doing my first AU as main speaker was a fantastic chance. All the work to prepare our talk during the summer will finally be presented.
But first let’s enjoy New Orleans … so warm and humid when we left the airport ! Discovering this city mixing old and new building style was really great, from Central Busines District to Audubon Park by the famous French Quarter.
We also took a tour to see alligators in the Bayou. A lot of fun to ride on this airboat.
Time was running and it was already time for the event ! Our Tuesday was really intense. We had no time between our classes and we met a lot of people. So interesting and so exhausting …
No rest on Wednesday morning, we woke up at 5am for the 5K Fun Run. That wasn’t very easy as we are not trained and not used to wake up so early, but running along the Mississipi with the sunrise was wonderful.
Just enough time to go back to the hotel, take a well deserved shower and I was back to the Convention Center to prepare my class.
A huge amount of stress before starting, but I felt really good during the presentation and all went great.
Our talk was about point cloud with Forge. I was sharing this class with Brian Nickel (AlliedBIM) and Michael Beale (Autodesk). After Brian introduced why point clouds is a great value added in BIM workflows, Michael showed how Autodesk implements point clouds in BIM360 and Forge using 3D-tiles to support large point clouds visualization.
In my presentation, I explained a way to create a simple point cloud using the last iPad Pro Lidar and ARKit technology to get spatial data.
Then we described how we are able to integrate it into the Forge Viewer and how we used Forge DesignAutomation to automate a Revit plugin that import the point cloud and align it with the CAD model.
Our class ended with a Q&A which was a great moment of exchange with the attendees.
Wednesday afternoon we participate to the Forge System Integrators meetup organized by Sanjana Chand (Autodesk) where we had a good opportunity to present us to others SI and people interested to meet us.
We finished this day at a private Forge reception with a live Jazz Band. It was a nice moment having fun and discussing with other Forge fellow and team members.
Tuesday morning started with a third Forge event, a private breakfast with some Autodesk Forge leaders sharing vision of future for Autodesk Platform Services – yes this is the new name of Forge and the name we must use from now.
After two intensive days, we had a less busy day to finish this event, having only two classes such as the excellent one done by Jaime Rosales (and prepared by Denis Grigor) about the new DataExchange API. We already had a quick presentation in June during the Forge Data days in Barcelona and everything was so confusing at this time. This class helped me to better understand the different ways to use this API some some good examples. Good job ! đŸ˜‰
Thursday evening took place “La Grand SoirĂ©e” which was the final party of the AU. There was some funny games in the hall and great band playing inside and oustide.
Unfortunatly, those who already been to AU in Las Vegas seemed a little bit disappointed about this party missing some energy and maybe some decoration (espacially for a Mardi Gras style party). But it was great to celebrate the end this event for everyone. We met some of them at the Cafe Negril, a good bar we found in the Frenchman street which seems to be where locals usually hangs out.
Friday morning, Katinka Sante and Maureen Higgins organized a cruise on the Mississippi river with the Autodesk Community and some Experts Elit. Cruising on the Paddlewheeler boat Creole Queen with this beautiful weather was perfect to conclude this trip and see the city from another point of view. Thanks to them for this tour.
We had a few hours to bring back some souvenir and taste one more authentic gumbo and it was already time to flight back home.
We really enjoyed this trip to New Orleans and the Autodesk University event. We made great connections with new people and were happy to see face to face people we had only met through video calls. Of course, strengthening relationships with those we had not seen from a while.
Can’t wait for the next AU !
