Innovative Styling Applications in Computer Aided Environments

Project Information

INSTANCE

Grant agreement ID: BRPR950042

Start date 1 January 1996

End date 30 April 1998

Funded under

• Specific research and technological development programme in the field of industrial and materials technologies, 1994-1998

Total cost € 0,00

EU contribution No data

Coordinated by

BMW Bayerische Motoren Werke AG
Germany

Exploitable results

INSTANCE-Innovative Styling Applications in Computer-aided Environments

The aim of Instance as basic research project to develop a process chain, rangin g from first sketches to a physical model were demonstrated in various functiona l software prototypes. At the final demonstration of the project it was proven t hat from sketches, which were provided by automotive stylists, initially a three -dimensional sketch could be created, then transferred into a voxel-model which then was interactively modeled in a virtual-reality environment. It was proved, that viable processes for a transformation of the voxel model to a spline surfac e were developed. As visible output of the process, a physical model was produce d on a five-axis milling machine. The process was evaluated within an industrial setting in order to prove the applicability of the approaches and to identify n ecessary future work on the modules. The three work packages showed different re sults:

Innovative styling applications in computer-aided environments (INSTANCE)

In today's automotive development processes, the aesthetic styling process is still dominated by conventional clay models. This creates a significant bottleneck in an otherwise fully digital process. As main potential impact of an optimised process chain in styling processes, INSTANCE sought to analyze, optimize and introduce appropriate computer technology to this first stage in the process, in order to (1) to increase the speed and quality of styling itself and (2) to provide an early digital link to the following steps in the product development chain. The industrial and scientific achievements include: - Development of techniques for combining surface and volumetric modelling (spline surfaces and voxel solids) to draw on the strength of each approach. Prototyping of a hybrid modeller using a voxel kernel with spline-based tools in order to achieve a virtual clay modelling approach. This includes development of an appropriate interface to the virtual clay modeller using Virtual Reality techniques. - Integration of rapid prototyping processes into computer-aided styling to implement an approach for creating early 3D sketches of a design. This includes a direct interface to the virtual clay modeller representation of the design model. - Devising a reference methodology for computer-aided styling processes to be used in benchmarking and reengineering existing styling processes. The final result of the project is an operational prototype of a process chain for automotive styling design. This prototype was used for demonstrating and verifying the goals of the project.