Just when I thought Revit was the lowest Autodesk could go - I hear about a 'program' (using that term in the loosest possible context) that has apparently been rattling around in Autodesk's 'portfolio of suites' for the last four years or so called 'ReCap' (apparently short for 'Reality Capture').
It's not surprising that Autodesk could take something with as much potential as 3D Scanning and Photogrammetry and turn it into a cloud-based clusterfuck (that charges 'credits'). A little online searching found more questions about what people were using to replace it with than anything else.
Apparently there was another program called 'ReMake' that was actually functional, and they couldn't have that, so they decided to pop a ReCap in that ass (sorry, I couldn't resist) - and, of course now that everything is 'subscription based', once it's gone - it's fucking gone.
While reading the comments on the Autodesk ReCap forum (which has a terrible format, is slow as fuck, and is just... so fucking packed full of Autodesk staff making false promises and informing users of functionality that is being removed), I got an eerie feeling that I've been here before.
Oh yeah - they are almost identical to Revit forums.
The only difference is that people seem to be a little more united in their derision. Oh - there are 'true believers' here too, but they seem to be more of the 'please sir, could I have some more' variety than a cult of cock-gobblers with chips on their shoulders.
Interestingly, the last new thread was from an Autodesk employee on 9/20 informing users that 'project cleanup and object mesh' feature has been removed, and the previous dozen or so were also from Autodesk employees (some responding to their own posts).
Scrolling further down you start to see people posting their issues, only to have their questions/concerns replied to with more questions or the classic 'known bug , working on that, maybe in the next relase' type of nonsense that Revit users are so used to.
Considering the apparent breakdown of this forum, it wouldn't surprise me if 'ReCap' itself wasn't being 'ReCycled' into another program so that Autodesk can stop supporting it and sell people another license.
What's especially amusing to me about the whole thing is that the people working in the industry that is driving this type of technology are sinking ungodly amounts of money into equipment, software, and time (just so much time ya'll), in order to reproduce things that already exist in reality.
I can see the point to it, but only just barely - because when it takes more time, money, and mental effort to create the final project than if you just used 3D design software to reproduce it, then what the fuck do you think you have actually gained? Oh - and if you don't maintain a license, you can't even access your own shit!
I'm a bit cynical - because over the years I've seen so many attempts at automating processes, only to get worse results, or require someone who knows what the fuck they are doing to go out and undo the mess. It's also frightening, because people who know what the fuck they are doing are getting in dangerously short supply, and people aren't bothering to learn anything from them.
At the risk of sounding like 'the old guy' for just a minute - I'm going to blame it on staring at their goddamned phones and tablets all the time while trying to get out of doing actual work. It's ironic, because all of these devices we carry around are intended to improve our ability to communicate, but in practice, they are making people more isolated and putting them in echo chambers.
I've seen more get accomplished in a 15 minute meeting with paper and pen than in three weeks of jerking off to the latest and greatest technology. I'm no fucking luddite, but you can't tell me I'm wrong. Walk into damn near any engineering office anywhere and peek into conference rooms/offices/cubicles, and you'll see the same fucking thing.
I've seen technology put to good use - but I've also seen it thrown up as a smoke screen of buzzwords and bullshit.
And all I can say is FUCK THAT SHIT.
-ckSkullfu
Next Time: All In Together Now
Well said. And yeah is dumbfounding to see many going crazy with the 3d scan trend, everyone wants to use 3D scanning in their project in some way or another, many times being much more profitable to just do the model from scratch or not at all! as you just said.
ReplyDeleteSometimes we get clients from an archaeology university and I really enjoy those projects, not always but a few times you go to remote places (because high speed internet is every were right?) to scan the place and get close to the excavations and artifacts, i've had some quite nice adventures with coworkers, sadly isn't that common.
Most times is the boring scan of structures and terrains for construction, but then there is the morons who feel like they are on the bleeding edge and ask us to scan stupid shit like machinery foundations which are basically an E shaped concrete structure with big bolts on the corners, or to scan their faces because they want to be cool and have a model of their face 3D printed. Yeah people pay for something they could do themselves.
Not long ago we got a a very wealthy client who wanted their dogs 3D scanned, and the stupid person in charge of the contracts said it was within our capabilities. It was a pain in the ass because first fur doesn't works shit with 3D scanning regardless of technology and then we don't have a 360° photo booth so we needed the dogs to hold still for some minutes which was nearly impossible specially because they had two unknown fuckers with a camera on their faces orbiting around. I explained to the madam that the scan was likely to fail or end up badly but she was just eager to see their dogs scanned and have a bronze sculpture poured. To the office we go, I upload the images to Autoshit servers and "scan failed" try again, it spit out a mess, the face of the dog was recognizable but the body was just a birds nest. Me being a young person of average income background it was a good peek at the extravagant dwellings and abundant commodities of exotic provenance some people enjoy.
There you go, the marvels of technology at the disposal of man (or women). At the end I get paid so I just roll and do the job, if the crapware cooperates that is. But sure if the idiots of the company were brighter we could have higher earnings and overall progress as species.
Lifestyles of the rich and pointless!!! :D
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