Design Sync Dassault
Maria Mauri
an architect in training and practice, nicolas senemaud has always been a technology passionate at heart. as a senior consultant for dassault systemes cloud team, he supports partners and clients in adopting and implementing the 3DEXPERIENCE platform to benefit their individual businesses and needs. as such, he constantly questions, proposes and develops helpful technology solutions for the creative industry. one such tool is xGenerative design.
from 2010 onwards, the advancements of computational design has strengthen the belief that creatives can mass customize pretty much everything in a building. these applications have transformed practices as well as even the ideas of how we perceive space. the emergence and democratization of visual coding accelerated this trend. students and professionals alike have been enabled to create and control complex shapes with just a couple of nodes, and this is where the xgenerative design applications comes in.
as part of the 3DEXPERIENCE on the cloud, xGenerative design is a CATIA application that is web based. users do not need to install hardware to create, open or modify their parametric design; it can be accessed securely from anywhere with any device. the tool also represents a big shift in formalizing computational design. it helps keep track of the evolution, manages ownership, and maturity state of the model as it introduces a collaborative ability. smart visual coding helps the user create their scripts and easily reuse it with other applications. this approach smooths the work process.
firstly, it enables multiple designers to create assemblies and connect multiple xGenerative design parts. these can share common reference geometries as well as parameters. once one changes, the design automatically updates. the tool can then be used as a parametric skeleton for template instantiation, which are product lifecycle management (PLM) objects that can embed lots of information, from shop drawings to local attributes. it expedites this ability for creatives to validate their designs. with the emergence of modular and off site methods, xGenerative design becomes thus a huge accelerator to allow digital continuity between parametric conceptual design and construction design.
When an analyst comes across a flaw or shortcoming in the design, they can notify the design team through the 3DEXPERIENCE platform. Using the notes from the analyst, design engineers make changes to the original design. Because the simulation model has associativity with the design model, it automatically updates. In this way, the majority of the design changes are automatically applied to the simulation model without manual effort or building a new simulation model from scratch. Because analysts do not need to remesh their model or reapply loads and boundary conditions, their modeling workload is reduced whenever design changes are introduced.
The connection between the analysts and the design engineers is entirely through the 3DEXPERIENCE platform, and both groups are able to communicate through the platform to keep the other apprised of any necessary changes to be made or changes that have been made, with any changes being automatically incorporated via the platform. This is another way in which the 3DEXPERIENCE platform enables design teams and analysts to reduce the number of steps in the workflow as they communicate with each other during the design phase.
Since design of products often require simulations in different physics domains, the platform allows individual analysts to develop their own simulation models, each tied back to the original design model. This makes it possible for an entire analysis team to simultaneously evaluate multiple design requirements. As each analyst performs their individual simulation and reports any need for design updates to the design team, those updates will be propagated to every simulation model built by the analysis team. This allows analysts to perform new simulation on the updated design without any need to manually setup the simulation model again.
Another reality of employing simulation early in design is the explosion in the number of simulation models and results. For each iteration of the design model, there is an equivalent simulation model and set of results in each physics domain. So, one design model produces a simulation model and results for structures, fluid dynamics, excitation, thermodynamics, and more. The more models there are, the more artifacts there are. As a result, the number of artifacts produced by using simulation early grows extremely fast.
The traditional methods for managing these artifacts and tracking which design iteration corresponds to each one have inherent flaws. It is easy to lose track. This results in errors, decisions made against the wrong information, and time wasted by both engineers and analysts.
The good news, however, is that the 3DEXPERIENCE platform provides automated tracking of these artifacts. By incorporating any design changes into a single source of truth for the overall design, the platform keeps track of any changes and associated simulation artifacts like setup data, result files, and communications. These artifacts are made available to both the design engineers and analysts as they work to optimize the overall design. Since any design update and the associated artifacts are made available to all stakeholders in the design and analysis process, there is no need for anyone to install additional software to keep track of the artifacts or design updates. This provides all parties with immediate access to design changes or requests for updates, all from within the 3DEXPERIENCE platform.
This intuitive connection across multiple disciplines of a product development team enables more efficient sharing of ideas and information. As analysts request updates based on their individual simulation and engineers implement those updates, all members of the design team and the analysis team enjoy real-time access to the simulation artifacts and associated modeling updates.
The 3DEXPERIENCE platform helps organizations improve collaboration and efficiency for product design, modeling, and simulation. It boosts their ability to solve complex design challenges quickly. Then, engineers and analysts can focus on successfully meeting the needs of customers rather than working on syncing the CAD model and the associated simulation models multiple times during the design process. In the end, they are better positioned to provide customers with effective product engineering solutions.
Collaborating between the electronic and mechanical design domains has always been a challenge. ECAD and MCAD tools have different design objectives and have evolved down different paths, and so has the way they store and manage their data.
But today's designs demand that this challenge be solved - small and complex product enclosures that house multiple, irregular shaped printed circuit boards - to successfully design these products the designers must be able to fluidly pass design changes back and forth between the ECAD and MCAD domains.
Passing complex and detailed design changes between different design software is much more than just being able to save data in another format. The electronic and mechanical design teams work independently, and need to be able to transfer changes at any point in their design process. The issue is, how do you manage the flow of changes back and forth between the teams, without impacting on either team's day-to-day design work? The last thing the design teams need is for one team to have to stop work until the other team has accepted their latest change, before both teams can proceed.
This challenge is solved by Altium Concord Pro, creating a bridge between the ECAD and MCAD domains. Both design domains connect transparently to Concord Pro. Whenever they choose, either designer can Push their design changes across to the other. When the receiving designer next opens that design in their ECAD/MCAD software they are immediately notified that there are changes pending, and can review the individual changes and choose to accept them or not.
So when the MCAD designer Pushes a board shape change and then realizes she has forgotten that a mounting hole also needs to move, there's no need to worry. The ECAD design is always compared to the current state of the design in Altium Concord Pro, so when the ECAD designer come back from lunch, their list of changes includes a board shape change and a mounting hole move. Accept the changes and click to Apply, and the ECAD design is in sync with the MCAD design.
When a new project is created in Altium Concord Pro, only the creator and Administrators will have write permissions. Use the links below for detailed information on where to configure project sharing permissions:
Both Altium Designer and your MCAD software interface to each other through a panel (tab) in the software. In Altium Designer it's the MCAD CoDesigner panel, in your MCAD software it's called the Altium CoDesigner panel, or tab.
The MCAD CoDesigner panel is always available in Altium Designer's PCB editor. For the Altium CoDesigner panel to be available in the MCAD software requires the installation of an Add-In. Details about configuring each of the supported MCAD applications is outlined below.
With Altium Concord Pro hosted on Altium 365, you can also download the add-in installer from the Workspace's browser interface. From the MCAD Plugins page click on the SOLIDWORKS tile. On the subsequent page, click the button to download the installer.
Remember that to use the ECAD-MCAD capabilities with SOLIDWORKS, you will need to obtain the relevant licensing through your SOLIDWORKS Channel. Note that this is a matter of compliance - reflected through Altium Concord Pro's EULA. It is your responsibility to obtain the relevant licensing from SOLIDWORKS, in order to satisfy this compliance.
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