Design Tools get a Little Better - Computer aided design software - Statistical Data Included

Automotive Manufacturing & Production, May, 2001 by Lawrence S. Gould

All the talk about outsourcing, multiple partners, follow-the-sun design engineering, and e-business has put collaborative and interoperability technologies on everybody's checklist of features for design tools. There's good news all around. The technology is real. And it is being incorporated in computer-aided design (CAD), computer-aided engineering (CAE), product data management (PDM), and other design-related applications, in fact, creating and sharing mechanical CAD (MCAD) information is getting better all the time. See for yourself.

Better Clicks

The latest version of Pro/Engineer 2001, the flagship solid modeler from PTC (Waltham, MA), features a "direct modeling" interface (other vendors call this a "heads-up" display). This interface lets users work directly with the geometry they're creating on-screen; that is, they can click-and-drag geometry into the desired shape, as well as selecting dimensional values from a drop-down list of most recently entered values. This replaces having users punch in parameters, dimensions, and the like from the keyboard (though that option is still at one's fingertips, so to speak). The upshot, says PTC, is that mouse travel and menu navigation for common activities is as much as 40% less than in previous versions of Pro/Engineer.

Better Functionality

Pro/Engineer now lets users create multiple variations of a design for process-specific tasks, such as analysis and manufacturing. These associative "process variants" are managed independently of the original design, letting designers make process-specific changes without having to revise the original design. Pro/Engineer also includes optimization technology that makes parts automatically adapt to stay in spec and meet desired functional requirements. The examples PTC gives are: "Cam shafts seek to stay in balance, containers strive to maintain correct volume, and mechanisms adapt to maintain desired performance and clearance objectives."

While PTC, SolidWorks (see February 2001, AM&P), and other CAD vendors prefer launching new CAD releases annually, IBM and Dassault Systems prefer the Energizer-Bunny approach: The releases keep coming and coming. The latest release is Version 5 Release 6 (V5R6), which comes only four months after V5R5, which came four months after V5R4. The latest release introduces an array of CAD/CAE/CAM enhancements, plus 17 new what-they-call products" to the Catia line, which now boasts 78 what-I-call "modules." (Many of these are mainframe-based Catia modules rewritten for desktop computers running Microsoft Windows NT or Unix operating systems. Running MCAD and such on conventional desktops may be a "better" attribute in and of itself.)

One of these new modules lets users manage multiple instances of a subassembly, wherein each instance has a different positional configuration. This eliminates the need for multiple copies of a subassembly and bills of material (BOM). Moreover, users can define assembly features across multiple parts in an assembly-in one step. These features remain within the individual parts, even when manipulated independently.

Another Catia module adds the human element into product development: Users create virtual mannequins to help evaluate operational activities (lift, reach, maximum weight), comfort levels, field of vision, and other human interactions with machines.

BeTTer TransLaTIons.

While you can "adequately" translate three dimensional (3D) geometry using IGES and STEP, translating the features in the models created by feature-based CAD programs is a stumper. A real stumper. According to the National Institute for Standards and Technology, interoperability problems for the U.S. automotive industry alone cost at least $1-billion per year.

It's getting easier, though. Translation Technologies Inc. (TTI, Spokane, WA) is an Internet-based service providing native-to-native, feature-based CAD model translations. These translations look and function as though they were created in the target CAD system. The company's Acc-u-Trans translation engine currently translates to and from Pro/Engineer and Catia; translations to and from SDRC I-DEAS, UGS Unigraphics, SolidWorks, and AutoDesk products are expected by the end of the year.

Translation involves five steps--all but one is automatic. These steps include a computerized review of geometric features in the incoming file, automatic native-to-native conversion of the geometry and features in the history tree, and automatic comparison of the original and new CAD files. Then a human steps in. An expert at TTI manually corrects the discrepancies identified in the comparison step. The last step is an automated quality-assurance check.

Translations typically take 24 to 48 hours and cost about $140. (An average file, according to TTI, is between 2 MB and 10 MB and contains about 100 features of average complexity.)

BeTTer WeBs.

Solid modeling is all well and good, but seeing these models move is better. Costing $2,495, version 7.0 of IPA (Interactive Product Animator) from Immersive Design, Inc. (Action, MA) spits animations out onto the Web based on the parts and assembly information in Pro/Engineer 2000, SDRC 1-DEAS Master Series 8 and 1-DEAS Web Access, SmarTeam version 3, Solid-Works 2000, and Solid Edge version 9.