One of the highlights of TED 2008 for me was watching “visual cartographers” David Sibbet and Kevin Richards capture the essence of the presentations with their amazing illustrations, sketched, posted and shared in real time using Autodesk’s BIGVIZ system. From a practical point of view, a lot of my post-TED blues is trying to sort out all the ideas from my scribbles. BIGVIZ is a perfect transactive memory because it is a clear notation of what I remember from the talks.

Thanks to Autodesk, the BIGVIZ document is available for all to download as a PDF (along with a movie).

I was familiar with David Sibbert’s work through his work as Sunseed Bardeen at “The Grove” in Second Life, where he’s using yet another remarkable canvas for visualization. It’s worth a visit to see what he’s done there, as well.

Wow, it’s already been 6 months since we demonstrated Second Life at Autodesk University!

Autodesk Island is now open to the public, and recently hosted an event with architect Sergio Palleroni and Autodesk VP Phil Bernstein to discuss ‘Green Design as Civic Engagement.’

The presentation was designed to engage the existing in-world community of architects and engineers who are already using Second Life as a tool in their professional practice. The community-based outreach attracted quite a diverse audience of tech-savvy early adopters, industry leaders and academics from all around the world.

During the past few months, Second Life has seen a significant growth in the number of new architects and students finding their way into Second Life, and it was to see Autodesk recognizing and offering industry-specific content to this growing community.

The discussion augmented the presentation Sergio gave at the 2007 American Institute of Architects (AIA) National Convention in San Antonio with additional insight, as well as a conversation about the role virtual worlds in the future of architectural collaboration and education.

You can learn more about how to visit Autodesk Island by clicking HERE, or if you already have a Second Life account, you can teleport directly by clicking HERE.

We recently completed the Destination Tacoma site for Autodesk. The site is full of videos and animations narrated by Pete Southwood that highlight the story of how the city of Tacoma used Autodesk Geospatial Solutions to modernize their city's entire mapping and data system. It includes a variety of "What if" scenarios explaining how Tacoma's GovME web site and other new tools can be used for tasks ranging from changing light bulbs to coordinating SWAT teams. There is also a time line that traces Tacoma's record keeping processes back to 1897.

It's great work by Mina Zinkosky, Courtney Malone, Amanda Mahan, Courtney Malone, Josh Ross, Pia Espinosa, Quiana Plump, Rivkah Medow, Ahmad Varoqua, Mark Celsor (no modesty here), Chris Blue, Allan Ballesteros, Michael Adcock and other folks from Clear Ink.

Check Out Destination Tacoma.