Extending the Role of 3D Modeling

Innovation abhors a vacuum, and great strides have been made to extend the 3D experience to all the participants in the product development process so that they can provide meaningful input to the product design. New mechanical design systems are available that allow upstream contributors and downstream consumers to interact with a 3D design model, and even to create models of their own. These systems extend true 3D modeling to the underserved while complementing existing CAD systems. As an example, let’s look again at the consumer product manufacturer who is introducing a new hand-held electric drill. Since most consumers already have an old, clunky drill buried somewhere in their basements, the manufacturer’s challenge is to introduce a new lightweight, stylish, ‘fun’ product—very low cost and available in stores in time for the holidays. The conceptual design group must create sleek new body types with plenty of consumer appeal, so they use a 3D modeler to modify at surfaces into shaped ones, uninhibited by the parametric constraints that are so useful in detailed design. To drive down the cost, manufacturing uses a 3D modeler to tweak the designer’s model to accommodate existing tooling. For fast turnaround, the analysis engineer uses a 3D modeler to quickly simplify the design model by removing all rounds before analyzing it. Representing the voice of the customer, marketing uses a 3D modeler to get input on the early design from focus groups and key retailers.

3D for Manufacturing

To understand the benets of 3D modeling to manufacturing, consider an NC operator whose team can’t aord the signicant training and ownership costs of the designer’s CAD system, so their product feedback is inecient and infrequent. Their suggestions (such as, “you should make this change to accommodate tooling”), though perfectly constructive, tend to require last-minute design iterations, increasing production time and driving up costs.But with a 3D modeling environment that’s familiar to 2D users, manufacturing can contribute to the design more easily and, therefore, can do so sooner in the design process. Let’s consider the die industrial caster mentioned earlier who receives a pump housing design. His experience is that simple design changes can have a signicant impact on the cost and speed of production, so he uses a 3D model to iterate on a more manufacturable design. He adds llets and rounds that were missing from the original design, eliminating stress points in the casting and optimizing material ow. He adds ribs for strength. He then uses this 3D environment to communicate all of these model changes back to design so that they can update the CAD model in their system, and he goes on to build his own tools and xtures around the design part.

“I’ve never had the time to learn the CAD system my designer uses. Instead, I rely on him to make all the changes for me. A 3D system that I could use without much training saves both of us a lot of time.”

3D Rising: Engineers harnessing the full power of 3D

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