3D Autodesk Instructions - LEGO® Harry Potter™ Hogwarts™ Castle

I had a very interesting weekend. I took the family to go cut down our Christmas tree because that's apparently what you do in a state that has trees. I grew up in Nebraska, we had a fake tree. Anyway I had to make two emergency on the road stops. My daughter started choking on her hot chocolate - legit choking, not just a hiccup. Then my older son must have gotten car sick or something. All I heard from Jennie was pull over his lips are white. Ah, the holiday season.

So what does all this have to do with the LEGO Harry Potter Hogwarts Castle? Nothing, that's just how I segway into my blogs. Right after AU I was asked to take on a project from the big man. Can you get the Hogwarts Castle into Inventor Publisher Mobile Viewer? When the big man asks if you can do something, you don't say "but that's 1290 parts, 330 unique, and 570 snapshots" - you say "When do you need it done by?". Little career tip from your Uncle Rob there... no charge. When he says 4 days, you find yourself a crack team and start modeling like yesterday.

Here's the rub. Try finding this set without knocking over a grandma at a 0400 door buster. This is one of the top toys this holiday season and I was in Vegas baby for the rest of the weekend. Nowhere to be found, Justin scoured Portland with the same luck. Long story short - we tracked a few down in Michigan, who knew.

This monster set has 3 books to it. LEGO has always done an awesome job with their assembly instructions. With these in the Inventor Publisher Mobile Viewer App my kids sat down for three hours yesterday and had a ball. I'm not saying they wouldn't have had fun with the books, again the books got me through - the difference I saw with my kids was how engaged they were and how natural it was for them to zoom in/out rotate around and navigate through the steps. I purposely didn't help them, just filmed because I wanted to see the difference in user experience between 3D interactive assembly instructions and the paper ones we are all familiar with. Have a look for yourself.

 

This was our Sunday afternoon. I sent the files around to some of the guys in the office and they had thier kids go through them, thanks Jamie for sending me your video, I love the close. He's so proud of himself. 

Now most of my readers here are existing Autodesk customers and I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't tie this project to what you guys are doing. Inventor Publisher and Inventor Publisher Mobile Viewer, in my opinion, are going to change what customers will expect your product documentation to be. Few things in engineering and design are as universal as passing along to somebody else how things are put together. Both the creation of the assembly documents and the use of them are rarely created or used by the engineers that designed it. 

I can go on and on about Inventor Publisher, and the mobile viewer app but I'd rather hear from you guys. Download the app. If you are reading this on your iPad, click on the links below to download the instructions and if you were lucky enough to out run grandma at 0400 at the Albuquerque Wal-Mart have them try and put the castle together using these:

3D interactive instructions are ready for you to experience!

Book 1 LEGO® Harry Potter™ Hogwarts™ Castle by Autodesk

Tap here ipm://qAx7vY/qAx615 on your your iPhone®, iPad™, or iPod touch® 

Book 2 LEGO® Harry Potter™ Hogwarts™ Castle by Autodesk

Tap here ipm://qAxzcK/qAx9g2 on your your iPhone®, iPad™, or iPod touch® 

Book 3 LEGO® Harry Potter™ Hogwarts™ Castle by Autodesk

Tap here ipm://qAx4io/qAxjlM on your your iPhone®, iPad™, or iPod touch® 

Characters LEGO® Harry Potter™ Hogwarts™ Castle by Autodesk

Tap here ipm://qA60mE/qAFtbr on your your iPhone®, iPad™, or iPod touch® 

Don’t have the app yet?  Download it FREE today! http://www.autodesk.com/publishermobileviewer  

Hopefully making fewer emergency stops when we hit Mount Bachelor to ski over the holidays,
-Rob 

Comments

[Rob Szykowski]

Rob, how many hours in Santa’s workshop boiler room did it take to model & assemble this? Looks great!
I think this technology will change the way we produce and consume assembly instructions and in big part eliminate engineering drawings as we know them(3D Annotate will be a perfect addition).
Next thing will be barcodes on packages - scan with the smart-phone/pad to download appropriate instructions in 3D. No more wondering if the drawings are the latest revision, you can download the latest set anytime.
IKEA, this technology is a God-sent to you.
I enjoy your blogs Rob, Thanks.
Rob from Toronto

[Rob Cohee]

Thanks Rob. We are equally as excited about this technology. As you can see the deliverable is wicked easy to use. The real gem from an engineering point of view is that Inventor Publisher:

1 - Uses the engineering data, nothing has to be re-drawn or re-modeled.

2. Can create all kinds of deliverables beyond just the mobile file. Publish to Word, PPT, SWF, PDF 2D & 3D, Vector so that you can both maintain existing documentation while transitioning to a cloud based delivery.

3. Inventor Publisher has to be the easiest tool I've ever used. Takes only a couple hours to pick up. And that its associative to the Inventor models... you can go ahead and start on your tech pubs earlier now.

[Dan Walsh]

Awesome Project my kids and I love lego. Doing rush jobs like this is where the internet comes in handy. After you knock off for the day you send it to the other side of the world for some other team to work on for the next 12 hours.

[Cheap Coach Bags]

What will be your harvest this year, my friends?

[abenk]

it's nice blog..... i like it..
pleased to meet your blog...
COME VISIT ME...OK...thank you very much