Autodesk Labs is part of the Office of the CTO (OCTO). Sometimes we have fun with our department acronym.

So you can imagine that Project Octopus for Robot Structural Analysis is near and dear to our hearts. We're thrilled the Design, Lifecycle, and Simulation (DLS) department decided to host their technology preview on Autodesk Labs. Project Octopus is a free technology preview that allows designers and engineers using Autodesk Robot Structural Analysis to seamlessly access data and results with Microsoft Office Excel.

Join the technology preview project today.

On Monday the team supplied me with a new build. I posted it to the Autodesk Labs project. DLS Software Development Manager, Marek Wiecek, shared with me what's in it.

The latest version of Project Octopus includes the following enhancements for:

I. Autodesk® Robot™ Structural Analysis Professional (RSA)

• New formulas for getting information from RSA projects are available:
  • Load record value: returns the value of the selected information about load record. Using the formula you can get the value of the load defined in RSA.
  • Array of selected objects: returns an array of selected elements. Using the formula you can get an array which contains the numbers of bars or nodes selected in RSA.

II. Results Connect – platform

• Setting up units in Project Octopus is now available

  You can set up units for the selected measurement system, and assign them to the active workbook, or to a new one. You can now specify a measurement unit for each unit category defined in Project Octopus. For some of the formulas you can also change the current unit directly while inserting the formula in the worksheet.

• New formulas for handling the units in Project Octopus are available:
  • Convert value to specific unit: converts the value in display unit to a specific unit. Using the formula you can convert any value from one unit to another (e.g. from the metric unit to the imperial unit).
  • Unit default symbol: returns the default unit for the specified product and category. Using the formula you can get the default unit for any specified unit category.
  • Unit display symbol: returns the current unit for the specified category. Using the formula you can get the current unit for any specified unit category.
  • Units categories: returns the list of units categories.
  • Using the formula you can get an array which contains the units categories specified in Project Octopus.

So if you are an existing technology preview user, please download the new installer. If you have not tried this tech preview yet, it's never too late to get started. You can share your feedback with us at labs.octopus@autodesk.com or the forum on the Autodesk Labs project.

Tentacles are alive in the lab.