October 15, 2016
This past month I led a cross-divisional team in the Autodesk global hackathon to develop the concept of 4D VR.
In the weeks leading up to the hackathon, I submitted a loose proposal for anyone interested in exploring how the company could leverage the latest VR technology. The intent was to brainstorm a project and execute depending on the team’s skillset.
Of course, groups within the Office of the CTO and elsewhere are already working to bring VR to Autodesk products, and they graciously volunteered their hardware and expertise to our efforts.
Ultimately we ended up with a non-technical team, so we focused on developing a concept through storytelling. We considered the company’s strengths, put ourselves in the shoes of current & future users, and looked at where the technology was heading. At the confluence, we discovered 4D VR:
4D VR brings a time element to the 3D worlds that Autodesk and our customers are already so good at creating. Leveraging emerging strengths in simulation and cloud computing, we apply computation insights to an immersive 4D environment to truly experience a design through ultra-realistic rendering.
We partnered with the team that produces company-wide announcements to shoot a mock news segment in that same style. I’m happy with how the concept turned out, and I hope our two days of work helps spread new ideas through the company and nudges product teams toward building this future.