Click on the advert above to visit the company web site

Product category: 3D CAD software
News Release from: VX Corporation | Subject: CAD/CAM software
Edited by the Engineeringtalk Editorial Team on 21 December 2001

Bringing together industrial design and
CAD

VX Corporation offers some suggestions to help guide the designer searching for tools that provide easier, more affordable and more complete design through manufacturing capabilities

Two recent IDSA studies revealed some startling facts: most ID groups are now involved in the entire product development process from initial product planning to post implementation Why? The studies found that clients are demanding that designers assume more turnkey responsibility and comprehensive product capability in all disciplines

This whitepaper offers some suggestions to help guide the designer searching for tools that provide easier, more affordable and more complete design through manufacturing capabilities.

"Closing the loophole" in the comprehensive development cycle demanded by clients depends largely on selecting premium performance tools.

But if the tools are expensive, they won't be used widely enough in the organisation dramatically to boost productivity.

Moreover, for busy professionals, the tools also need to be easy to learn and easy to use - and for designers, it's often important that the tools be fun to drive as well.

Whether it's a hot new home appliance, computer or car, imaginative design is delivering huge financial benefits to corporations willing to stand out in the marketplace and build healthy margins through smart product management.

But as design becomes more important, it also collides with the corporate demand for speed to market and quick results.

According to design management expert Donald Reinertsen, author of Managing the Design Factory, rapid product development optimises the financial benefits of design.

In his analogy, unfinished design is a like an investment that loses capital very quickly.

One of the chief culprits is the cost of making changes later in the product development process.

Reinertsen's solution is to drive as many changes as possible into the early stages of the design process where changes are hundreds of times cheaper.

In this context, product designers need tools that can easily facilitate new product concepts, while at the same time generating precise models that can be quickly manufactured at less cost.

Integrated design through manufacturing tools dramatically improve this situation - they give designers the ability to react quickly and make changes that are manufacturable.

This degree of integration of artistic creativity with engineering precision is hard to achieve, but it is precisely what is needed as design becomes more important in driving product development.

Collaboration between the 'pure' product designer, the mechanical engineer, the manufacturing engineer and the tool maker is essential, yet because of differing tools and training, uniting these disciplines has been difficult.

Historically, industrial designers and mechanical engineers have used different software tools.

The tools that are of greatest relevance to engineers for specifying the mechanical parameters and managing the production process have dominated the design process.

Yet much of the conceptual sketching remains pen on paper, so the designer requires tools that make it easy to explore alternative shapes.

Ideally, the CAD system permits fluid conceptual sketching that can instantly be captured as precise engineering drawings.

The common alternative of creating a prototype that is measured and then converted into a CAD file with a separate piece of software is becoming less financially viable - it's too time consuming and often much of the design intent is lost.

What is necessary is a single tool that encourages design exploration yet allows engineers to create detailed drawings, to drive prototyping devices and to generate tool paths for manufacturing.

Designers also want a tool that is easy to learn and easy to use.

Photoshop requires months of daily experience to attain full proficiency.

Yet even a casual user can perform simple but productive image editing after a few hours of training.

The key here is an interface that hides the complexity until specialized functionality is needed.

Too many CAD systems overwhelm the designer with engineering decision making.

As a result, some designers use specialized and expensive computer-aided industrial design (CAID) tools that support the highly conceptual front-end design process.

But more and more ID firms and corporate ID departments have been struggling to maintain the integrity of original product designs once these move to detail engineering and manufacturing.

CAID software generally can export IGES or STEP files, but pulling these files into a more precise CAD/CAM package generally requires careful and time-consuming file fixes.

In many cases, as mechanical engineers translate the designer's work, then transfer CAD models to manufacturing, the final product loses the aesthetic "edge" that differentiates best-selling or category-redefining products.

The UK-based design firm The Product Group has strongly advocated designer-led product development.

The firm realised several years ago that they needed a CAD/CAM solution to be able to supply the level of service their customers demand.

"Essentially it's about control," says Mike Corcoran, Product Group co-founder.

"We were getting to the stage where we would take an approved model to a toolmaker only to find that the finished product did not live up to expectations.

We couldn't ensure that the design would survive the whims of the toolmaker." All too often a design replete with subtle contours and stylish lines would come back from tooling flatter and blander.

"I would estimate that you can achieve about 80 percent of design intent by handing over models and engineering drawings to toolmakers," says Corcoran.

"This is a pretty good ratio, but with so much emphasis being placed on 'touchy-feely' product design these days, it is no longer appropriate to leave anything to chance.

We must have control of the whole process." While new design technologies have contributed to lower cost and higher quality products by enabling concurrent design, integrated conceptual design and engineering is rare.

For the designer to gain the degree of control many seek, CAD/CAM software has to be easier - or even fun - to use.

Unfortunately, the typical CAD/CAM package too often has focused on adding complex or large enterprise features at the expense of ease of use.

Clearly, there are few tools that specialise in driving the process at the earliest phases of design.

Industrial designers want intelligent sketching, but also the ability to sculpt shapes by mixing solids and surfaces in a free-flowing natural approach.

Conceptual engineers who specify the mechanical criteria that drive industrial design need new tools that interact seamlessly with engineering, concept sketching, modeling, prototyping and manufacturing routines.

To the degree that these tools are integrated and easy to use, designers and engineers will work more closely and communicate more clearly, reducing confusion and retaining more of the original design intent.

Sophisticated and fluid hybrid modellers offering full-featured solids and surfacing help designers easily sketch conceptually, and at the same time quickly convert the drawing into a precise solid or surface or both.

This integration with a full range of CAD/CAM tools delivers the necessary control and speeds the entire process.

Design changes that previously created bottlenecks are now at any phase of the project immediately reflected throughout all of the items associated with manufacture of the product.

For example, a change to sharpen a curve or lengthen a line will automatically change the milling routine that produces the mould cavity.

Design software should also be able to apply photo-realistic images to a surface - and where Class-A surfaces are necessary, be able to both display the high level of finish to aid decision making as well as generate the tooling necessary to produce it on the manufacturing floor.

Sophisticated surfacing significantly reduces the number of prototypes necessary, while high-end tools for surface analysis identify misaligned or non-manufacturable sections to eliminate re-design.

The CAD system should provide the required engineering parameters and flag problem areas as design proceeds so that designers don't waste time creating concepts that are physically impossible to produce.

Designers working at a purely conceptual level might not need this capability, but having the tools to identify and fix these problems places more of the manufacturing (and design) control in the hands of the designer.

An integrated software tool that permits concurrent development and easy changes on the fly - at any point in the process - will speed time to market, increase the profitability of each job, and help everyone involved make better decisions.

Work can focus on the product rather than constantly reinventing it, as is the case with non-integrated CAD tools.

VX Corporation has been intensely focused on closing the gap between very expensive, very high-end design tools and value-priced, premium performance systems.

The goal is to transform the CAD experience so that industrial designers can fluidly create the most challenging products, then directly transform them into manufacturable models.

The seamless integration of design, CAD and CAM provide all of the aesthetic, modelling and production tools that an ambitious ID group needs for total control of design through manufacturing.

VX software provides these tools.

To help you sort through the CAD software competing for a place in your studio, a brief decision guide can be found on the next page.

We believe that a fair comparison will clearly demonstrate that VX software represents by far the best value in a premium performance design system.

You don't have to buy multiple applications.

Compare the capabilities of integrated products such as VX against separate packages.

Expect sketching, freeform surfacing, solids modelling and manufacturing in a single application.

You'll find that a single complete solution helps ensure the design integrity of the final product.

Cost should be affordable enough to place systems on many desktops.

The very largest companies can afford to spend £40,000 for a piece of software, but most firms will benefit more from ten copies of a £4,000 system.

And that £4,000 system can meet or exceed the capabilities of the expensive system.

Complete, integrated tools streamline the entire process.

As Reinertsen notes, good design management is based on putting more responsibility for changes onto the designer.

Learn one system that does it all and avoid file translations and rework in order to make changes efficiently.

Aesthetics and engineering should naturally reinforce each other and seamlessly flow back and forth.

Be sure that the software handles changes anywhere in the process to automatically update every related element.

Go for power - but make sure it's easy to learn, easy to use.

Insist on full functionality, but don't forget that software that requires too much training doesn't get used widely or often and it won't improve your operations.

Design intent should be retained.

Strong design requires strong process control.

If the CAD software doesn't make it easy for you to manage the complete process, including flexible editing of the design history, consider another package.

• VX Corporation: contact details and other news
• Email this article to a colleague
• Register for the free Engineeringtalk email newsletter
• Engineeringtalk Home Page

Search the Pro-Talk network of sites

Put your news on Engineeringtalk  |   Advertise  |   Get the free Engineeringtalk newsletter  |   Engineeringtalk Home
About Engineeringtalk  |   Copyright © 2000-2008 Pro-Talk Ltd, UK