Autodesk Forge Platform and Digital Twin Evolution

Autodesk Forge Platform and Digital Twin Evolution

I’m on my way to Las Vegas to attend Autodesk University 2019. The event is an annual extravaganza of everything you can see and learn from Autodesk – product, technology, community, people. It is a perfect place to catch up and meet people. Because AU is such a big event, the survival tips, and some upfront preparations are needed.

I plan to attend Forge DevCon pre-conference on Monday morning and look forward to learning more about the Autodesk Cloud Platform development trajectory. Some of my favorites from the agenda

FDC328324 – The Future of Data: Forge Data Platform “At last year’s Forge DevCon, we looked at our approach to developing a data platform built for a future where design and make have converged . . . a future where accessing, modifying, and connecting data at any phase in your project or product lifecycle have become critical to success . . . a future that becomes more and more of a reality every day. Come check out the progress we’ve made on the Forge Data platform, where we’re heading in the future, and how you can leverage Forge Data for your business.”

FDC319153 – Forge Road Map Are you building apps on the Forge platform today? Are you using Forge as part of your Digital Transformation strategy – or helping your customers transform their business? Do you want to learn more about what the Forge Team has been working on over the past year? New Design Automation Engines including Revit, Inventor and 3ds max,, new BIM 360 APIs including Cost and Model Coordination (aka clash detection), order of magnitude increase in size and performance of models you can view, and more. Join us to learn about what’s new with Forge APIs and what’s coming in the next generation of the Forge platform. Get the insights you need to confidently create your application development plans.

My special interest was caught by Digital Twin live demo and video. Check out more information here. Digital Twin is fast becoming a paradigm for data modeling and data management connecting silos of information in virtual and physical product representation. Here is a picture I captured from Autodesk (thanks Brian Roepke for sharing).

I played around the application and demo and found it interesting. I hope to learn more and find answers on many questions about how this Digital Twin implementation using the Autodesk Forge platform is connected to other parts of the Autodesk portfolio of applications.

Here are a few screenshots I took as I was playing with the app.

The idea of Autodesk Forge viewer combined with cloud data foundation gathering information from multiple sources is compelling. The visualization combined with the data is a key element of the experience. How data pipeline is organized and how information is connected to business services is remaining open.

What is my conclusion? Autodesk cloud platform and applications are maturing. Started almost a decade ago, it includes a set of platform tools and applications. The most interesting part of the cloud platform is around data, which is becoming an essential part of how product information is collected, managed and accessed by users and applications. The data platform must be capable to collect, coordinate and manage the information coming from multiple sources. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

Disclaimer: I’m co-founder and CEO of OpenBOM developing cloud-based bill of materials and inventory management tool for manufacturing companies, hardware startups, and supply chain. My opinion can be unintentionally biased.

Pictures credit Autodesk

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