Application of CAID in Systematical Industrial Design

Minning Zhou, Weimin Guo

School of Design of Jiangnan University Wuxi, China E-mail: zmn_lucy@163.com

AbstractThis paper discusses a tremendous change on the mode of computer application in the most industrial product design in China from computer-assisted mapping to computer aid design (CAD) with no paper, reviewing the development of the CAID and analyzing the status quo of the computer application mode. Combining the systematic process of industrial design, it researches into methods and process of the CAID, from the analysis of the computer aided product positioning, three-dimensional computer aided conceptual design, CNC processing and rapid prototyping.
Key words: computer aided industrial design (CAID); the research of product systematicness; the express of design thought

II.

CURRENT SITUATION OF CAID APPLICATION

I.

INTRODUCTION

CAID is the short form for Computer Aided Industrial Design. With the rapid development of science and technology, especially the advent of the information age, the market is extremely demanding on product performance, price and delivery time, asking more for shorter time required to design a product, the diversity of species, entertaining character, individuation, small batch. All these require manufacturing enterprises must rapidly develop high quality products to influence the market, to response market demand and to improve their own competitiveness. In order to shorten time to ensure the novelty, the uniqueness and the accuracy of products, using CAID is the most effective way to improve efficiency. CAID is a branch of CAD technology. Since computer had cartography ability in the 1960s, CAD as a representative of the new technology reform swept across the world. In promoting the computer itself performance improvement and renewal, computer aid industrial design (CAID) began to infiltrate four processes of the industrial product systematic design, such as product orientation, the product concept and design, model manufacture and marketing promotion, which brought great change to industrial design. Using new technology such as digital imaging technology, 3d virtual, model design, CNC machining technology, computer-aided industrial design (CAID) is playing an increasingly important role in industrial product systematic design.
___________________________________ 978-1-4244-8728-8/11/$26.00 2011 IEEE

In the current CAID developing, computers have replaced the traditional manual drawing and hand-made flow, widely used to perform design ideas and design achievements, such as PADL geometric modeling system, CADAM for aircraft design, DAC-l for automobile appearance design, SMS software of IBM Corporation, etc. CIAD has gained very good effect in shipbuilding, locomotive, machine tool, machinery and other industries, which makes the product design cycle shortening, cost reducing and quality optimized, the product competition ability obviously improved. The computer has changed the design and enriched our thinking and assignments, making whole design field present unprecedented change. From 1960s to 1990s, CAID technology was only used in drawing performance effect of the final design show; AutoCAD was used to three-view and two-view drawing of products; Three-dimensional modeling software 3DS MAX etc was used to set up virtual three-dimensional models with the 3d view; Image processing software such as Photoshop, Coreldraw, etc. were used for typesetting and to perfect final designs. These constituted the main content of the industrial design at that time. The computer was only viewed as a senior drawing tool and couldnt really compromise industrial designers creative thinking, but just slightly reduced trivial duplication of effort, saved time and cost, and avoided the irreversible drawing. Entering the 21st century, with the rapid development of computational speed, virtual 3d processing capacity and the ability to simulate the reality, a number of computeraided design conception software start to appear, such as Autodesk alias sketch, rhino, keyshot, Z - Brush, pro/e. These software can not only fully express the idea of designer in scheme conception stage, but also use the powerful real-time rendering function to meet the need for visual effect when communicating with customers, realizing the breakthrough from "computer-aided drawing" to "computer aided design conception expression". III.
THE KEY POINT OF INDUSTRIAL DESIGN SYSTEMATIC RESEARCH

The key point of system theory design concept in industrial designs is to take industrial design objects as well as relevant design problems as a system, such as designing

procedure and management, designing the classification and arrangement of information, design goal drafting, human machine - environment system function distribution and action coordination planning, etc., and then to use the system theory, system analysis concepts and methods to handle and solve them. Industrial design is a product of the industrial revolution, and a crossover emerging discipline of the humanism, society and natural science. In a sense, industrial design is a design of the systematic engineering. In the handicraft era, a product can be completed by only a person from the raw material acquisition to large quantities of design manufacture until sales. But modern industrial products must rely on group to finish, its important to ensure information sharing and exchanging among the software and real-time information exchange on the design platform. There are some factors must be considered when designing a industrial product: functions (including machinery, physics, physiology, psychological and social functions), materials and processing (including new material application and disposed products reuse), aesthetics (form and color), institutions and structures, economy (benefits of enterprises, consumers and circulations), and security (standard, law, etc), maintenance and repair, man-machine engineering (human body size, action space, operating environment, psychology, consciousness, etc.), creation (requirements and competitions) , sales promotion and after-sales service, etc. The priorities of the industrial design systematical research lie in: A. To formulate a systematic design process and development process For a design team, it is nothing more important than making a systematic design process, which is not only related to the whole involving work step-by-step and orderly, but also can largely avoid and reduce uncertain contradictory factors. So system analysis appears very important. Only making a good systematical analysis can guarantee smooth execution of the system design scheme, avoiding technical frequent rework and economic big losses. B. Systematic industrial design process The system design of a product usually has two aspects -- system analysis and system synthesis. System analysis and synthesis is the basic method of system theory. System analysis is a purposeful and step-by-step process of exploration and analysis. In this process, considering longterm and overall priority of the system, confirming system objectives and standards, analyzing functions and mutual relationships of every level subsystems, as well as transaction between system and environment. Then, on the basis of investigation and studying, collecting data and systematic thinking reasoning, various assumptions come out about the system input, output and the transformation

process, exploring some possible solutions. System analysis is an important part of system engineering method and is the basis of system design and system decision. System synthesis is that based on the results of system analysis, after evaluatiing, sorting and improving, to decide the composition and characteristics, and determine the basic aspects of design object. After determining the plan is the development phase, launching conception, drawing sketches, analyzing technical feasibility with engineers for model production, etc. IV. APPLICATION OF CAID IN SYSTEMATIC INDUSTRIAL
DESIGN

In the trend of modern systematic industrial design to multidisciplinary combining, computer aid industrial design (CAID) makes engineers, designers and economists cooperate closely, integrating planning, design, technique, construction, the budget and marketing of the whole design project, relative production activity into an interactive system, which greatly shortens the design cycle and improves work efficiency. Among various methods and angles of industrial design systemic research, CAID has become a commonly used means at technical and operational levels. Generally speaking, CAID in systemic industrial design application process can be summarized by the following several stages: prophase data analysis - plan sketch conceive expression -- model production - mold design - material analysis. The whole CAID systematic design process is as follows: A. Prophase data analysis in the prophase of design, designers can get the great information source through the Internet by giant information storage and retrieval function of the computer, using statistical analysis software such as SPSS to comb data, getting analytical data of reference value. Taking SPSS software data analysis as an example, that is, consumers characters affect the importance of various main functions. A lot of feedback information of customers characters and hobbies are analyzed by SPSS software into indicative data of product preferences, so as to guide design direction. B. Plan sketch conceive expression The main function of CAID is to help designers to quickly express ideas and make it visualization. In the study of design concept, the computer has become an effective tool, which can easily realize seamless links from sketch to fine design sketch by Painter, Autodesk alias sketch software. In the period of software sketching, the use of hand-painted board makes designers easily involve in the prophase sketch thinking stage, rather than later expression. Application of software in this phase can make sketch reversible, convenient reversion, infinite copy, network transmits and maximally simulating all drawing tools,

scrapping the traditional pencils, compasses, rulers, and truly realizing paperless industrial design. (Figure 1)

molds, and workflow driven by a process can guide the user to complete each step. Using automatically created parting surface and automatically separating functions, stylists can quickly and easily create complicated moulds. (Figure 3)

Figure 3. Mold design in Pro/E

Figure 1. sketch and expression

C. Model production In the developing stage of design, the computer can generate 3d view by sketches, fast and conveniently complete the construction process of digital model by using rhino. As far as products form, material, surface, texture, color and shadow, using Keyshot software to carry on the simulation study can assist designers in developing conception. Three-dimensional model rendering realism from renderers as Keyshot V-ray Keyshot, as well as huge performance of digital technology can fully reflect the results of design thinking from different angles. (Figure 2)

E. Material analysis Use rendering tools such as keyshot, v - ray, etc, to realize the interactive ray-tracing and global light rendering, to produce real 3D rendering images as photos without complex setting. With the integration of environmental imaging photos, medium synthesis, the computer can simulate various material texture and color scheme, intuitively expressing designers ideal product images. (Figure 4)

Figure 2. 3D model in Rhino

Figure 4. Render in Keyshot

D. Mold design The use of pro/e software makes three-dimensional mould research and development simple and easy, which can be used to create single cavity and multi-cavity mold, as well as casting assessing molds issues of slope, subsidence and thickness, avoiding making data conversion errors in large-scale product development and design. Through automatically updating mould models, drawings and electrodes, it can reduce the demand to redesign. Through interference inspection and open imitation, it can eliminate the expensive rework overhead. Pro/E tool design can create even the most complicated single cavity and multi-cavity

V.

COMPREHENSIVE INTERACTIVE USE OF CAID

In actual design practice, typically using the above auxiliary design means comprehensively together, positive and reverse consideration into industrial design, utmost ground to advance design thinking, to stimulate creativity, to clearly express the design main thinking. A. Product measurement and information collection Researches of systematic industrial design firstly establish on the base of collection and research of massive product information, which is a piece of practical work, using photography, measuring tools to touch the imitation of

products and physical size record. Through the way of splitting products or inquiring information, objective data of product appearance and internal structure are collected for computer entering, and autoCAD, Coreldraw are used to draw size and two-dimensional figure. (Figure 5)

Figure 7. product structure explosion diagram

Figure 5. draw the two-dimensional figure

B.

Analyzing man-machine engineering principles, using autoCAD to render man-computer engineering mechanical drawings based on this By measuring, structure and function of human body are studied with man-machine engineering principles, analyzing users use environment, size of body parts and center of gravity of product user and correlation among body components in activities, analyzing physiological changes, power consumption in the process of using, and human adaptability of all sorts of labor. Based on this, concept sketches of product use state are drawn. (Figure 6)

D. Using environment analysis 3Dmax can simulate all true static or dynamic using environments, and make stylists conveniently show product dynamic mechanics and applicable environment, the design style, new function, giving customers intuitive feeling. Mechanical simulation software Abaqus can even make accurate mechanics test on the product models. E. Application of virtual technique Virtual reality technology (VR) is the result of rapid development of computer hardware technology, software technology, sensing technology, artificial intelligence and psychology. In essence, it is a brand-new kind of manmachine interface, and is physical reality simulation. With VR system, users not only can enter the virtual world generated by computer, but can communicate with the three dimensional world by sense of sight, hearing and touch. Sensing data gloves simulate the pressure through built-in gasbag expansion. Language speech recognition synthesis systems can identify users instruction and real-time response. Through input devices such as data glove, trajectory tracking, speech recognition, cameras, etc., information can be gained and inputted, and then using the high-speed operation computer system as well as helmet, monitor, voice, sense of touch, output device and speech synthesis device etc. to timely feedback information by the form of easy acceptance for human senses. Stylists can treat the ready product models as the entity, considering their shapes from every angle, experiencing product hand-feeling and dimension with all in lifelike scenes. To design sector virtual reality technology is a brand-new digital world. Although it is not fully mature, the form of threedimensionally simulating the illusory world must produce unprecedented influence on the design of information age of mode from sense of sight, touch and smell. VI. CONCLUSIONS With the rapid development of three-dimensional virtual reality technology, the industrial design will develop into

Figure 6. man-computer engineering mechanical drawings

C. Using Pro/E to build the product structure explosion diagram, analyzing the product internal structure and the hidden design With Pro/E software, not only product appearance can be analyzed, but also the internal structure of products will be unfolded by axis side chart, which helps designers further clarify products internal structures and details, having important significance to further research technique development, equipment installation and mould manufacturing. (Figure 7)

visual and touchable three-dimensional virtual model from "paperless" so as to realize the complete informatization of systematic industrial design. It is beneficial to the super design platform and to establish multinational design teams. Through the information data combining two-dimensional surface and three-dimensional space organically, datamation information analysis, digitization effect chart and threedimensional model virtual test are formed as well as the model's rapid prototyping (RP) and the data mould development and production, which greatly boost the design speed and efficiency of systematic industrial design. But industrial stylists must understand that CAID can replace the labor of manufacturing and processing, but is unable to replace thinking and creativity. Anyway, only industrial stylists master solid theoretical foundation and the systematic design method, could they make excellent works with the increasingly updated technology.

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