Product category:
CAD solid modelling software
News Release from: ICEM | Subject: ICEM Surf
Edited by the Manufacturingtalk Editorial
Team on 10 October 2003
ICEM software helps Lotus Engineering
ICEM software enabled Lotus Engineering to eliminate model stack from design process for Elise ll sports car.
ICEM Ltd., the leading 3D surface modelling software developer, announced today that its ICEM Surf software suite enabled Lotus Engineering to achieve a 'first' for the company during the development of the Elise ll sports car, by eliminating the time and expense required to develop a physical verification model stack Instead, they moved straight from final digital surface model to production tooling design for the vehicle's body
This article was originally published on Manufacturingtalk on 15 Jul 2003 at 8.00am (UK)
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The result was a valuable saving in man-hours, far fewer physical prototypes and a consequent reduction in development costs.
ICEM Surf was used throughout the Elise ll body design development process, from concept development, through surface engineering and Class A surfaces development, to final production tooling design.
The software's real-time rendering and visualisation facilities, rather than physical models, were used as the design progressed and particularly in the latter stages, to verify the design on screen.
Once the final design was agreed and signed off, surface data was released to engineering for use directly in the production tooling design process.
"It's all about having confidence in the integrity of your digital model", said Phil Hayden, surface development manager, Lotus Engineering.
"With ICEM Surf, what you see on the computer screen is what you will get in reality.
Unlike the usual solid modelling CAD systems, ICEM Surf enables you to develop and view components in their correct proportion to each other, as if you had a physical model.
It also enables you to dynamically 'tweak' and refine the model with great accuracy and to immediately see the results of your actions.
It's these capabilities that gave us the confidence that our final surface model of the Elise ll was correct, enabling us to by-pass the usual physical stacking model verification process." ICEM Surf also enabled Lotus to adopt a concurrent engineering approach to the development of the Elise ll, with the design development of the car's 'customer visible' surfaces and the detailed engineering design of the vehicle's underlying structure proceeding in parallel.
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