Autodesk makes software for people who make things. If you've ever driven a high-performance car, admired a towering skyscraper, used a smartphone, or watched a great film, chances are you've experienced what millions of Autodesk customers are doing with our software. Autodesk gives you the power to make anything. For more information visit autodesk.com or follow @autodesk.

By empowering the imagination, design, and making of towering skyscrapers, high-performance cars, and great films, Autodesk supports three industries:

• Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC)
• Product Design and Manufacturing (PD&M)
• Media and Entertainment (M&E)

As diverse as this might sound, it's not as strange as it might seem as these industries are starting to converge. For example, people who construct buildings are beginning to work more like traditional manufacturers by prefabricating components of buildings (e.g., trusses) in environmentally controlled warehouses and then assembling the parts onsite. Even though buildings are often one-of-a-kind, many of the parts that make them up are not. And oddly enough, manufacturers are acting more like architects in that one-of-a-kind products (i.e., bespoke creations) are now possible with technologies like 3D printing. Both AEC and manufacturers rely more and more on M&E technologies like video, virtual reality, and augmented reality. In many cases, Autodesk brings what it learns from one industry to the other two. To make the game playing experience more real, game companies are starting to use the same reality capture technology used for scanning construction as-builts — just like general contractors.

The Autodesk Gallery at One Market in San Francisco celebrates design — the process of taking a great idea and turning it into a reality. With about 60 different exhibits regularly on display that showcase the innovative work of Autodesk customers, the gallery illustrates the role technology plays in great design and engineering. There are a few gallery exhibits that touch on the convergence of the industries that Autodesk serves.

	Irregular elegance Tensegrity structures are forms built from a system of struts and cables connected in such a way that the struts experience only pure compression while the cables only experience pure tension, producing exceptionally rigid assemblies. Forward-looking companies like Arup demonstrate that generative design software and additive manufacturing techniques are changing the way architecture is designed and built. // more info
	Artfully done SFMOMA added a 10-story, 235,000 sq. ft. addition whose facade was created from 700 unique glass fiber reinforced plastic panels, a material typically used for the manufacture of boats, that weighs 1 million pounds less than an equivalent amount of cement. Two Autodesk customers, Snohetta and Kreysler & Associates, worked together to combine architecture and digital fabrication processes normally used for manufacturing. // more info
	Breaking new ground In Norway, the Vamma Hydropower Plant remains the country's largest river hydropower plant — even 100 years after its construction — producing 14% of Oslo's electricity. Renovating a 100-year old hydropower plant is using state-of-the-art Autodesk technology and a totally paperless process — breaking new ground in the design and construction. // more info
	Bionic builder The Landesgartenschau Exhibition Hall is the first building to have its primary structure made entirely of robotically fabricated wooden plates that are interlocked together. Inspired by the microscopic connections found in the skeletal systems of sea urchins and sand dollars, the exhibition hall's complex design was made possible by computational design and Revit. // more info
	Bridge to the future MX3D is using 6-axis robots to 3D print metal in mid-air, literally building the bridge as they walk across it, taking additive manufacturing from small to large scale. Autodesk believes machine intelligence and robotic fabrication will herald a new age of construction and is using the technologies to develop tools that will enable the creation of more human-centric designs with more freedom of form, faster build times, reduced waste, and increased safety. // more info
	Driving for realism This realistic virtual reality racing simulation game is based on actual racecar models and data captured by scanning actual racetracks. Slightly Mad Studios recreated 90% of the cars in the game using 3ds Max or got the original designs from the racecar manufacturers. // more info

Thanks to Autodesk Gallery Exhibit Designer, Paula Berggren (see blog post), who suggested the topic for this blog article.

Autodesk has always been an automation company, and today more than ever that means helping people make more things, better things, with less; more and better in terms of increasing efficiency, performance, quality, and innovation; less in terms of time, resources, and negative impacts (e.g., social, environmental). When one industry learns from the practices of another, that helps all involved.

Convergence is alive in the lab.