Digital prototyping, primarily used in engineering design and analysis, is one aspect of how organizations can effectively use 3D data for product visualization. A digital prototype is a computer-based product simulation based on Computer Aided Design (CAD), Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) and Computer Aided Manufacturing (CAM) data integrated into a single visual environment for viewing and analysis. By selecting the right tools for prototyping, and leveraging them properly, the 3D data of a company can be a valuable asset throughout the corporation, providing solutions to meet a variety of needs.

However, digital prototyping offers unparalleled flexibility at a minimal price. Relying on the actual 3D CAD data for accuracy, these virtual prototypes can be easily assembled, disassembled and analyzed over and over again. Engineers are encouraged to be innovative, as many of the cost and schedule constraints associated with physical prototypes are non-existent. Design engineers can search databases for previously designed parts that, with simple modifications, can be used in the current project. When used in conjunction with a CAD program, new parts can also be quickly modeled and tested in real time to see how they how they interact with the entire product design. Because digital prototyping allows changes to be made quickly � and early for detection of design flaws � higher quality products can be introduced to market in a shorter period of time.

In most cases, digital prototypes are not meant to totally replace their physical counterparts. Instead, the intention is that when used effectively, they will reduce the number of physical prototypes necessary to bring a project into its final stages. The Boeing 777 aircraft program is easily the most widely publicized example of complete reliance on digital prototypes. On Oct. 15, 1990, Boeing announced plans to build a new twin-engine airliner to fill market demand between the smaller 767 and the massive 747. Remarkably, less than four years later, on June 12, 1994, the first 777 prototype took off on its maiden flight.

The 777 was designed by cross-functional teams using thousands of terminals and a computer-aided, three-dimensional interactive application (CATIA) system that allowed engineers to simulate the assembly of the 777 without resorting to physical prototypes. The system worked so well that only a nose mockup (to check critical wiring) was built before Boeing workers assembled the first flight vehicle.

Progressing Forward
3D CAD data is the foundation upon which digital prototyping begins. However, the focus of most traditional CAD programs has been on creating highly accurate tools for designing parts and fixtures which, when combined to create sub-assemblies and assemblies, cannot effectively be used to render and interact with complete digital prototypes in real time. While the programs have been successful in the design and analysis of products consisting of less than 100 components, companies building large assemblies face a bigger challenge in the managing of their products. Typical CAD applications cannot deal effectively with advanced automotive, aerospace and computer assemblies, and users are forced to operate on a small subset of the entire design.

Compounding this problem even further is the fact that these large assemblies typically have many options or variants associated with a particular product. For example, an automotive company must not only design for the thousands of parts associated with a new truck, they also must design for the parts associated with three other engine options, suspension options, interior options and general accessories. Managing all of these parts effectively requires new applications built with techniques specifically targeted for large assemblies.

There is a definite need for integration of data from multiple CAD systems into a single digital environment. Advances in this area are being made with digital prototyping tools (for example, EAI's VisFly and VisMockUp). The primary goal of these tools is to facilitate viewing and analysis of very large assemblies by providing compelling, easy-to-use applications that dramatically improve the product's quality and productivity. To achieve this, a development framework is provided that can effectively deal with a near infinite amount of data. Pro-ducts like these provide the ability to work interactively with large models in real time, satisfying the integration needs of the industry. Members of an engineering team are able to work from the most current version of the prototype as the products are designed to augment the functionality of CAD and product data management (PDM) systems. Working through seamless interfaces, the digital prototype is automatically kept up-to-date with consistent revision control. Using these tools early in the design process can considerably cut life cycle costs, and products can be marketed more quickly.

Software Advancements
While there are still areas where improvement is necessary, there have been a number of advances in software technology in recent years that have impacted digital prototyping and product visualization. Product development has benefited from the wide spread acceptance of C++ and object-oriented programming, which make the process of taking a product from concept to creation easier and more efficient. By promoting product reuse, companies developing software products can rapidly create new features and entire products by leveraging existing well-tested capabilities. Customers are able to adopt the necessary product visualization solutions today, and also add other important technologies as their needs change and expand.

In order to be effective, digital prototyping tools must run on a typical engineer's desktop workstation. DirectModel, co-developed by Hewlett-Packard and EAI, was the first program to incorporate this technology into a product that ensured that high-performance digital prototyping tools could be cost effectively placed on every engineer's desktop. This cross-platform, large model rendering toolkit also demonstrates the great advances in digital prototyping software technology. DirectModel and DirectX multimedia toolkits have been adopted by Microsoft to dramatically boost application performance when rendering and interacting with complex 3D visual databases. Made easily accessible by software developers, these products advance the general state of the art in large model rendering.

The widespread acceptance of Windows NT has also been a significant development, allowing framework to maintain a lightweight infrastructure where all added functionality and user interface is supplied by the integrated components. This framework allows the application to be extended with new modules without altering the original framework.

Practical Uses
Companies like Ford use digital prototyping software to visualize and interact with entire vehicle assembly designs in real-time. Communication across Ford's design group has improved dramatically, and the amount of time needed to introduce a new model has been drastically reduced.

The digital prototyping software plays a strategic role in Ford's C3P concurrent engineering initiative. The project integrates the company's computer-aided design, engineering and manufacturing into a global system of common data functions that will result in a seamless, unified system encompassing all stages of vehicle and component development. Ford estimates that these measures will help to eliminate half of all costly late development changes and lead to breakthrough improvements in quality and time-to-market.

Mazda Motor Company has also implemented digital prototyping software as part of the Mazda Digital Innovation program. This initiative combines concurrent engineering, virtual manufacturing, digital vehicle mock-ups and simulations to aid in the development process. Mazda is using digital prototyping for vehicle design and manufacturing within its new concurrent engineering system to implement an enterprise-wide team engineering approach to product development. Digital prototypes will allow Mazda engineers to visualize and interact with entire vehicle assembly designs, and communicate more effectively, leading to a reduction in product development costs and time-to-market.

Concurrent approaches to engineering, like those being taken by Ford and Mazda, are possible because of digital prototyping products that allow the integration of all the required data to manufacture a product into one environment. In fact, digital prototyping projects are most successful when they are implemented in a team environment where groups of people work on separate elements of the product. While these groups may be physically located in the same building or on the same campus, they may also be separated by miles, or even oceans. The digital prototype promotes integrating the designs from each of these groups into a master model. In most cases, work-in-progress data from each of these groups is checked in nightly, for example, into a central data archive. Visual representations of the digital prototype are automatically created from this master model and provided in a convenient form to all the engineering groups. Each group then has access to both the "checked-in-data" and their own work in progress, as well as the data of the other groups.

Connections to Virtual Reality
Virtual reality has come to mean the study of virtual environments, a synthetic sensory experience in which a human participant is immersed in a computer simulation that imparts visual, auditory and force sensations. Immersion is the key concept behind virtual reality, the feeling of being "present" or "absorbed" in the computer generated space. There are three degrees of immersion: little or no immersion (any experience that leaves the user "detached"), partial immersion (an experience in which the user feels as though they are on the outside of a three-dimensional world and looking in), and full immersion (an experience where the user is "on the inside" looking around).

Virtual reality applications for digital prototyping are generally found in corporate and university research development labs, outside of the scope of traditional design processes. Primarily due to the relative expense and reliability of virtual reality hardware, ease of use and performance, virtual reality applications are not included in the mainstream engineering processes of organizations. This limited use makes design changes harder when using virtual reality technology, unlike digital prototyping, which allows a variety of changes to be made very quickly and easily. True use of virtual reality technology and techniques is probably best suited for applications that require full immersion. Areas of research include visibility, reach and maintenance applications, where the user is placed into the simulation of a process, as opposed to viewing and analyzing a digital model. Most engineering applications require little or no immersion, and 3D graphics alone are revolutionizing the product design process. However, virtual reality solutions should be investigated and used where the application can greatly benefit from the current state of art.

The Future
As enterprise-wide product visualization spreads throughout corporations, more and more uses for digital product data will be found. These ideas have the potential to revolutionize their respective business processes, just as 3D CAD and digital prototyping have revolutionized product design. Easy-to-use tools will fundamentally change the way products are developed, and dramatically improve the way companies do business.

Bill Boswell is the director of Software Product Development for Engineering Animation, Inc.

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