In-context visualisation aids design reviews

An ICEM product story

Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team Jul 28, 2003

ICEM is pioneering real-time styling and engineering management reviews with an innovative suite of "in-context visualisation" tools.

ICEM is pioneering real-time styling and engineering management reviews with an innovative suite of "in-context visualisation" tools.

Designers and managers can now interact with virtual products in familiar, real time, virtual environments.

Already recognised as offering the best in class real-time rendering technology, ICEM's tools also offer different styles of renderings and environments.

These allow complete vehicles be "dropped" into them and styling or engineering reviews to be conducted, depending on the requirement.

These can be saved, for use with a whole range of digital models and or design themes.

This "adaptive visualisation" technology is unique in the industry.

Curve based animation and turntable tools allow true fly through capabilities and facilitate animations of complete vehicles to be created on the fly, or stored for later design reviews.

Other tools, usually found in digital mock-up tools, enable real time quick interaction with large models.

Using real-time rendering technology, ICEM's suite of visualisation tools, are already allowing designers and managers to interact with complete vehicles stacks in photo realistic environments, in real time.

Techniques, such as self-shadowing and real time lens flare means, that time-consuming static ray tracing techniques are now becoming a thing of the past.

One of the main benefits of these tools is that they are used in the "persistent modelling environment" of ICEM Surf.

This ensures that designers and managers can model and perform modifications in real time, on screen, in the design review.

Design decisions and alterations can be suggested, performed and visualised in one toolset.

"We are using ICEM Surf as an advanced studio design tool for building quick lightweight surface designs allowing us to reduce the time it takes to make full size clay models and prototype parts.

The real-time rendering package allows us to visualise, in realistic studio settings, how the vehicle is going to look while at the same time allowing us to model and manipulate in this mode", states Jay Beever, Math Modelling Team Leader, Ford PAG, California, USA.

Another ICEM tool, ICEM Viewer, enables the complete "digital design" to be exported into a web deliverable format, for easy viewing and distribution.

Ideal for use in geographically remote design studies, this "lightweight" format, allows multiple versions of the digital models to be reviewed concurrently, reducing ambiguity, and ensuring that design decisions can be made faster and more effectively.

"Working closely with our customers, ICEM is starting to integrate these advanced rendering tools into our customer's design and web based environments, enabling all departments to experience the benefit of these tools for project review", states Lee Cureton, Chief Executive, ICEM.