Autodesk® FormIt

Working on some new features

tvollaro — Tue, 14 May 2013 14:58:48 +0000

We have some exciting stuff coming soon…

Villa Rotunda Model Shared on A360

tvollaro — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 17:16:03 +0000

Following David Light’s lead, I have shared the Villa (Carpa) Rotunda model that has been profiled on this blog and in our videos. To access the shared model in FormIt:

first download the newest version from the App Store
Log in to, or create, a free Autodesk 360 account
Then click on this link: http://a360.co/11hBk5a
From here click on “Copy to My Cloud Documents.” A copy will be placed in your FormIt folder (assuming you have logged into your account at least once from FormIt on the iPad.)
Open FormIt, log in to A360 in the Gallery, and “pull down” to refresh the gallery.
Have fun modding the model!

Share your results with us on Twitter with #FormIt or in the comments here.

New version of FormIt is now available!

tvollaro — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 23:07:14 +0000

The new version is here! We just got confirmation from Apple that new version of FormIt has been approved. The FormIt team has been working really hard and we are psyched to see what you will do with it. Share some images with us on Twitter and give us feedback on our GetSatisfaction site.

You can read about, and download, the new version from the Apple App Store. Here are two videos that highlight two of the big new features:

Here is a playlist of all the videos

(yes, still iPad only, folks. But we hear you Android people!)

What else can I make with FormIt? 3D printing and other Friday fun

tvollaro — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 20:22:49 +0000

A brand new MakerBot Replicator2 showed up at our office recently. Of course we started thinking about what we could print from FormIt. I started printing out pieces of the Villa Rotunda model that I posted back in March. But I wanted to print something useful – you know, something that solves a problem. I own an old Oyster acoustic guitar pickup, which I like very much. However, it suffers from a design flaw. The method for attaching the pickup to a guitar is this putty that dried up and fell off years ago. So I fired up FormIt, modeled a clip to hold the Oyster in place, brought it into Vasari, exported an STL file, sent it to the printer and (just about an hour later…yawn) I had my clip!

Postscript: My colleagues in San Francisco have a fancy Objet and were able to print a proper model of Villa Rotunda:

What have you been up to with FormIt?

tvollaro — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 16:07:26 +0000

Here is another teaser of what is to come in the next version of FormIt. Just some things we have been working on. What about you? What have you been up to with FormIt? Share your work in the comments or on Twitter @AutodeskVasari #FormIt

Things are getting sketchy

tvollaro — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 20:15:28 +0000

FormIt is under constant development here at the factory. As product owner, a lot of really cool screentshots and videos are crossing my desk. I could not resist sharing this one. Caveats, of course. This is still under development and … Continue reading →

FormIt on RevitCommunity.com

tvollaro — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 01:13:39 +0000

Check out this recent article from RevitCommunity:
Take Conceptual Design Everywhere with Autodesk FormIt

Congratulations to the winner of the DesignByMany “FormIt University” challenge

tvollaro — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 02:20:50 +0000

Congratulations to Jeff Cramer, the winner of the DesignByMany “FormIt University” challenge! I thought Jeff did a fantastic job using all of the FormIt features. Modifying edges and faces can create some strange tessellations, but Jeff was able to wrangle them into some really compelling forms. The landmark is also a great use of the booleans.

From the DBM site:

We are pleased to announce the winner of the the FormIt University Challenge is FormIt University (Tessellations) by JEFF CRAMER.. The challenge asked professsionals and students in the architectural, engineering, and construction (AEC) community to design a school campus in Mumbai using the new Autodesk FormIt iPad App.

Introducing FormIt 2.0

tvollaro — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 16:47:54 +0000

Since releasing FormIt at Autodesk University late last year, the team has been working hard to follow up with some great new features. We are happy to announce today that FormIt has been updated on the Apple App Store with some new features – including, you guessed it: metric units!

Here are some great videos to orient you to the new version, as well as FormIt in general.

And for a full list of features:

Support for metric units
Cloud conversion to Autodesk Revit: supports Metric or Imperial, depending on sketch setting
Imprint closed shapes on faces and push them in to make solid cuts
Grid and snap settings adapt to current zoom level
Rectangles can be drawn at angles to the grid
Satellite images can be reloaded
Redesigned sun-study popover takes up less space
Gallery is a single scrollable page and can be sorted by name or date
Sketches now display their name in the Gallery
Fit to view has option to include a loaded image
Help button now has an option to go to our support site
We are now gathering anonymous usage data. This can be disabled from the About page
Crash recovery: if there is a crash, you will be able to retrieve data on next load
Various stability and bug fixes

If your comment is about a feature request or a bug, please post it instead at our GetSatisfaction support site. Thanks!

Vasari Talk

tvollaro — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 19:53:38 +0000

This past Wednesday, my colleague Lilli Smith and I re-introduced FormIt as part of our ongoing Vasari Talk webinar series. In this webinar, we demonstrated the capabilities of FormIt, including how to share your data via Autodesk360 with colleagues using Vasari or Revit. The recording is shown below: