From Optics to Virtual Reality

CAR ENTERTAINMENT -
IMPROVE DEVELOPMENT
EFFICIENCY WITH SPEOS
Case Study

Challenge
Pioneer was willing to shift to a digital
evaluation process to get out of physical model
based validation in order to reduce the labor
hours and number of LED light sources
previously required. A virtual engineering
process was required by Pioneer to optimize
the lead time and quality of lighting design.
Application
1. GPS
is a real pioneer of
in-car entertainment devices
In 1937, Pioneer's founder, Nozomu Matsumoto,
successfully develops the A-8 dynamic speaker.
Since then, the company has been dedicated to
audio/sound system from home use to B to B
supply.
The car audio and/or GPS you have in your car,
would never have come to you without Pioneer’s
innovative production.

Satisfying both design

and cost requirements

2. Audio system

Realizing design
Specifications

Results & Effects

Pioneer has succeeded to reduce development
workload and improve efficiency. For example, World’s first series (source: Pioneer official website)
elimination of backtracking when designing
illumination structures initially using a simple
analysis. Additionally, the calculation of absolute Although the company has extraordinary
brightness value proving the efficiency of the technology in the audio/sound industry, Pioneer
system. has been facing difficult challenges in today’s
demanding market – the illumination of a device.
For the light guide plate, reduction in workload
through design standardization has been achieved.
As a result, Pioneer has triumphed over satisfying
both design and cost requirements in their
product development.

The A-8 dynamic speaker (source: Pioneer official website) Pioneer head office in Kawasaki, Japan
Use case 1: GPS control board Use case 2: car audio dial
The company first investigated the color harmony To achieve an attractive design, SPEOS takes an
of the control dial on the GPS unit. Although important role in car audio dials as well.
Pioneer is the expert in this field, figuring out the
best lighting harmony taking into account the
luminance uniformity was one of the difficulties at 1. Design idea
that time.

However, thanks to SPEOS, Pioneer finally solved

the issue and accomplished the result that the
designer intended.

At first glance, the dial area appears to

have a uniform illumined light ring
surrounding it, satisfying Pioneer’s goal.

2. First simulation result

Color coordination

Thoroughly checking the illumination

performance efficiency has brought a big benefit
to Pioneer which reduces the number of LED Simulation & evaluation
light sources.

No issue on brightness unevenness

Simulation & Uniformity is not

achieved around the dial…
Multi-colour Reduce
LED 3. After improvement
LED
X X

Light guide plate

Good uniformity is obtained!

 Use case 3: Optimization About

In order to validate possible design variation, Pioneer Corporation

Pioneer takes advantage of the SPEOS
optimization tool. A world-leading Japanese company specializes in digital
entertainment products, based in Kawasaki, Kanagawa,
Japan. Founded in 1937 in Tokyo developing the A-8
Design
LED Light guide plate LED dynamic speaker by hand., Pioneer played a role in the
1 development of the Laser Disc player, the first
automotive Compact Disc player, the first detachable
face car stereo, Organic LED display and more.

Products: Car Entertainment, Audio-Video, DJ

Design Equipment, Headphones
2
In-house tool to evaluate Employees: 22,193 at parent and consolidated group
simulation result automatically companies (2013, June)
- Multiple analytical results opened in one go Customers: Nissan, HONDA, Daihatsu, Fuji Heavy
Design Industries (Subaru), MAZDA, Suzuki, Ferrari
3 - Copy & paste with ‘several clicks’ into Excel
Manufacturing site worldwide
Australia, Brazil, Belgium, China, Canada, Holland,
India, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, Norway,
Panama, Russia, Singapore, Thailand, Taiwan, U.A.E,
Final
Design USA, UK, Vietnam,
Automatically extracted excel data
For more information:
http://pioneer.jp
And to reduce multiple design creation…
B
A Model creation
D workload OPTIS
C
Illumination
E F investigation OPTIS is the world leading software editor for the
workload scientific simulation of light and human vision within a
Standardize the simulated part Backtracking
Virtual Reality Environment.
model and duplicate on other workload
product models. Its solutions allow designers, ergonomists and
engineers to simulate and optimize lighting
performance, product appearance, as well as the
Vision for the future visibility and legibility of information on Human
Machine Interfaces, in a fully-immersive environment.
Since 2006, Pioneer has been using SPEOS to improve
design efficiency by digital validation and promoting Since integrating its solutions in DS SolidWorks, DS
designer analysis. The firm has been working to reduce CATIA V5, PTC CREO and Siemens NX, OPTIS is still
workload through automation and standardization, as the only company to provide a light simulation
well as utilizing SPEOS throughout the development solution fully integrated within a CAD/CAM software.
process from the simple analysis of the concept design
to calculating absolute values for brightness in the OPTIS solutions represent an optimal balance
detailed design stage. between design and cost, performance and quality, as
well as manufacturing ease.
In the future, Pioneer plans to improve development
efficiency by extending the analysis to more products For more information:
and establishing appearance evaluation techniques. www.optis-world.com