Vasari Update

This information has been sitting in my inbox for a week now. Busy makes blogging even harder at times, but it's a good problem right!?! I've written about this product before as well as the Vasari Talk web sessions that have happened nearly each month. You can check those out HERE.

Project Vasari has reached a tipping point in its evolution. As you probably know, its been a very popular project on Autodesk Labs. They've seen more than 60,000 downloads over the last 1.5 years and it has dramatically exceeded their expectations. Doing this work via Autodesk Labs has allowed them to quickly test out new ideas as well as respond to user requests.

Attendees of RTC and AU have probably heard Matt Jezyk present sessions (with Zach and David) devoted to Vasari and he wrote, "I'm happy to announce that based on customer demand we are graduating Vasari from Autodesk Labs and are launching a Public Beta on our new site Autodesk Vasari.com!"

Just in case you haven't heard much about Vasari yet, Matt provided the following descriptive summary.

Autodesk Vasari Beta 1 is a slimmed down version of Revit 2013 focusing on conceptual modeling and early analysis. It is meant for architectural designers and energy analysis who are not necessarily using Revit. The new Beta 1 is file-format compatible with Revit 2013 and also contains all the features from previous versions of Project Vasari. The main new features of Beta 1 are Revit 2013 file-format compatibility, Cloud Rendering and Repeat/Divide features. A less restrictive End User Licensing Agreement (EULA) is also in place to allow firms to further test this pre-release product in their environments. Access to Autodesk 360 Energy Analysis is still available via a free Autodesk ID login. The Beta 1 release will expire on January 31st 2013.

Some firms have been leery of putting their project's design data in software that is in a "lab experiment" state. Put another way, as long as Project Vasari was a lab experiment there was no assurance that it would survive long enough (or ever turn into an actual product) to let a firm finish a project that is relying on the Vasari modelling effort throughout. This experimental nature, while providing a great way to see things develop quickly and early, meant uncertainty about its future. This is a step in the right direction so that those concerns can be assuaged.

You can join their forum site and be part of the ongoing conversation and help get the word out too, here's how: Invite your friends to join you and/or Add Content and finally Tell your Twitter followers.

Vasari 2.5 Released

Climbing out from under the rock I've been under, I'm just writing this post on the off chance that some of the people that read this blog don't also read David's or Brian's or Zach's or... well you get the idea. I got an invitation to attend the webex announcement but work comes first!

One feature that will make plain old Revit users a bit miffed is the new perspective view mode that you can model and see your model in perspective at the same time! Yeah, I know...like who wants that? (that's sarcasm if you are Sheldon Cooper btw)

It's been updated at Autodesk Labs now, you can go there to download it. They extended the update to expire on August 31, 2012. Keep in mind that the site says the program will no longer operate after that date.

Check out the videos at You Tube, I embedded this one as the temptress, be tempted you know you want to be.

Video - Overview
Video - Extruding Faces

Vasari Talk Today

Another installment of Vasari Talk will begin today at 11:30 AM (EST). If you want to learn more about panels and reporting parameters from Zach be sure to register and attend (it's virtual).

Since I'm mentioning Vasari, there are two new offerings at the "Labs" for it.

Automatically Update Export for Solar Radiation
Dynamo for Vasari

Vasari Back On Line

Just in case you missed it Vasari went "offline" for a couple weeks at the end of the year and the Autodesk Labs blog announced that it is available to download again. They had to deal with some licensing issues apparently so they pulled it so they could sort through that.

Go Vasari again!

If you missed it before they been running Vasari Talk sessions and you can CHECK OUT the previous sessions. The site says that they'll return in 2012 with more sessions so stay tuned.

No Way! Way! Live Slices

This is a echo of Zach's post tonight... in his video he says that we will say "No Way" and he'll respond "Way" and it will degenerate from there. Naturally I felt compelled to say "No way!" with a post... He's demonstrating how he built a family that can describe the profile of another form by placing its points on the host form. It's an adaptive point family that includes additional points that generate the same shape as the end result of the points you place on the massing form, "live" slices of the form. Pretty cool, pretty high rests the bar, Zach does...

Here's his video, read his POST on BUILDZ.

Vasari Update

Vasari 2.1 update has been posted at Autodesk Labs. They stated that it is a minor update, "just some bug fixes like correcting problems with SketchUp import and custom glazing."

In another post they announced Vasari Talk. This post is a day late and a dollar short though since the one they were alerting us to was yesterday, sorry about that! Here's what was posted:

The Project Vasari team has just kicked off a periodic series of webinars where you can have some "face time" with the Project Vasari development team. There will be demos, tutorials, and answers to your questions. The next session will be this Wednesday, October 26 at 11:30 AM Eastern (-4 GMT.) You can register for upcoming sessiosn and view past session videos on the wiki page.

Register for Project Vasari Talk (This is part of WikiHelp so you can review the information they've posted)

Future Sessions:

Points and Lines

Click here to register for Wednesday November 9, 11:30 - 12:30 Eastern Time (GMT -5)

Introducing Parameters

Click here to register for Wednesday November 16, 11:30 - 12:30 Eastern Time (GMT -5)

Keeping your (design) options open

Click here to register for Wednesday November 30, 11:30 - 12:30 Eastern Time (GMT -5)

Past Sessions:

Session 1: The Basics

Session 2: The Mysteries of Creating Form

Dept. of Rumor Mongering - Vasari Technology Preview 2.0

A little birdie told me that we might be seeing another release of Vasari in the not too distant future. Hopefully the birdie isn't a canary in a coal mine?!

Here's a video preview!