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Product category: CAD solid modelling software
News Release from: ICEM | Subject: Surface modelling, analysis and visualisation
Edited by the Manufacturingtalk Editorial Team on 17 July 2003

ICEM Surf Software Helps New Lamborghini
Gallardo

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ICEM Ltd announced today that its ICEM Surf software has played a key role in helping Lamborghini meet its design and development criteria for the new Gallardo production sports car

ICEM Ltd announced today that its ICEM Surf software has played a key role in helping the fabled Italian super car maker, Lamborghini, meet its design and development criteria for the new Gallardo production sports car ICEM's surface modelling, analysis and visualisation software was used throughout the Gallardo development project, from concept development to production tooling design for all 'customer-visible' components of the new car

The car was launched at the Geneva Motor Show and was also showcased at the recent Stockholm International Motor Show.

ICEM Surf was also used during the Stockholm show itself, which is held every three years and is the largest in Scandinavia, to present photo-realistic visualisations of the Gallardo on a full-scale virtual reality SGI Powerwall in the main exhibition hall.

Andrea Bonfatti, Lamborghini's body development manager, commented, "The use of ICEM Surf enabled us to shorten the Gallardo development timescale by reducing the number of design iterations required to arrive at the finished product.

Similarly, we were also able to cut the cost of the production tooling development process." From clay to production tooling.

Unlike all other Lamborghini models, the Gallardo has been designed to be produced in significant numbers using normal assembly line techniques.

And being a completely new car, the whole of its body and interior features needed to be designed from scratch.

To meet the time schedule and design criteria for the new car, Lamborghini's body engineers imported 'point cloud' scan data of the clay model into ICEM Surf, where the initial 'first pass' surface models were then created.

Using the standard surface manipulation and analysis tools within ICEM Surf, such as reflection lines, continuity between adjoining surfaces, surface flatness and G3 curvature analysis etc, the engineers were able to refine these models with the minimum of iterations in order to arrive at the final production-ready surface models for the car's entire exterior body and interior surfaces.

ICEM Surf was also used extensively during the design review process, where it was used to generate photo-realistic visualisations of individual components and assembly models of the car, which were then viewed by the development team in Lamborghini's virtual reality centre.

Any physical prototypes that were required during the development process were also produced using ICEM Surf data.

This use of ICEM Surf enabled the Gallardo development team to meet Lamborghini's Class A surface quality requirements at the same time as satisfying the styling and engineering requirements.

In addition, final production tooling for a variety of manufacturing processes, including injection moulding, laminated thermoplastics and aluminium pressing, was also developed using the final ICEM Surf surface model data, thereby saving both development time and costs.

Lamborghini's Bonfatti said, "ICEM Surf is an invaluable tool to us.

It enables us to design and develop complex surface shapes and to manipulate and analyse them in real-time so that you immediately see the results of your actions.

This means that we can satisfy the stylists' requirements, at the same time as producing highly accurate 3D digital surface model data for use in the detail engineering design and manufacturing processes.

This all helps us to shorten our time to market and to reduce development costs.".

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