A company that goes global can't afford to keep its technology local. That's the advice of Patrick Seeber, group information manager at Element Six, formerly known as De Beers Industrial Diamonds, of Gauteng, South Africa.

The supplier of abrasives and industrial diamond materials recently implemented technology to ensure that design and data management can be effectively moved across continents. The company operates its diamond research laboratory in South Africa and has processing and manufacturing facilities there and in Ireland, Sweden, the Netherlands, and England.

"We develop our products globally and know that this requires effective management of every phase of the process to succeed in the long term," Seeber said.

Project teams use design and data management software from CoCreate of Fort Collins, Colo. Members hold virtual meetings in the software's meeting center, which allows employees—no matter where they work—to discuss, inspect, and change drawings and models.

The software is a decided step up from the way team members formerly communicated—via fax, e-mail, and airplane trips.

Today's sports helmets don't just minimize risk of injury; they're tools toward victory.

Now, ski and snowboard helmets merge fashionable design, comfortable fit, and an aerodynamic design that, in some cases, can shave precious microseconds off a world-class athlete's performance time.

That's why the German Ski Association recently asked the sports helmet manufacturer Casco and design agency TargetDesign to improve on the officially approved helmet.

When they were asked to come up with a new helmet for the German Ski Association, designers at TargetDesign first modeled the helmet in 3-D, then fitted it on digital skiers.

The designers performed motion studies in a wind tunnel—using actual athletes—and then on a glacier. In both environments, they studied the posture of racing skiers, said Hans-Georg Kasten, TargetDesign's chief executive officer.

"As designers, we're not only responsible for aesthetics, we must be focused on aerodynamics and velocity as well. A designer is pulling all the strings," he said.

The results from wind tunnel and glacier testing determined the shape of the future helmet. The team discovered that a helmet designed without the conventional spoiler—meant to distribute air around the bottom of the wearer's face—would be more aerodynamic and increase speed, contrary to previous belief, Kasten said.

The designers stored the study results as videotape, sketches, and photographs.

"I took pictures of the athletes in several postures when we were on the glacier and in the wind tunnel," said Rolf Schiller of TargetDesign. "On my laptop, I scaled their pictures and put them on top of each other, layer by layer. The result was that all the skiers, no matter what body height or build, always had the exact same posture.

Schiller used these templates to generate initial 3-D models of a skier wearing a helmet. For this, he used the design software StudioTools from Alias Systems Corp. of Toronto.

Designers tested the 3-D helmet on a computer model of a head to make sure it would sit and function properly.

"I took pictures of the athletes when we were on the glacier and in the wind tunnel."

"With this tool, designers were able to meet the requirements of different shapes and sizes of faces, ensuring ergonomic conformity and harmony of face and helmet with goggles," Kasten said.

Casco then built a prototype helmet, using its proprietary CAD tools and rapid prototyping equipment. The TargetDesign team and the skiers then returned to the wind tunnel—with the skiers wearing the prototype this time—to get the results.

They clocked air resistance at a speed of 100 miles per hour to confirm that the new design was more aerodynamically and ergonomically efficient than the ski association's previously designed, more conventional helmets, Schiller said.

It's not really that hard, sometimes, to fly by the seat of your pants.

That's what engineers at business-jet maker Gulfstream discovered when they wanted to obtain a three-dimensional digital model of the Gulfstream IV skin panel assemblies. The engineers needed that model to produce a numerical control program necessary for the skin panel's new manufacturing process.

There was one hitch: The model had never existed in digital format. So how would the engineers get a digital CAD version?

The engineers weren't stymied for long. They used computer-aided measurement technology to essentially reverse-engineer the master physical surface. They used much the same technology to find data for the fasteners and cutouts.

In this way, the engineers were able to reverse-engineer the part into their CAD system.

The CAM technology included a laser tracker from Leica Geosystems of San Ramon, Calif., to trace the part, a Faro Arm from Faro Technologies Inc. of Lake Mary, Fla., to trace and measure fastener locations and cutouts, and CAM software from Metrix Corp. of Montreal. For CAD, Gulfstream uses Catia from Dassault Systèmes of Paris.

With the digital model now available, the engineering team can manage the design data and can more easily hand off changes in the file to manufacturing. Gulfstream has also freed up its storage facilities, because it no longer has to house surface masters and tooling masters, said a Gulfstream spokesman.

Let the early adopters have their fun, then take advantage of falling prices later.

That's the thinking of Brett Stevens, deputy director of postgraduate computing programs at the University of Portsmouth in Portsmouth, England.

"Ever since I first saw a large-scale virtual reality system demonstrated five years ago, I knew I wanted one," Stevens said. "But the technology was expensive and not very robust."

Five years later, Stevens has his wish. He sought a system that would include both front- and rear-projection screens to provide the maximum screen area in the relatively small space the university could allot.

Haptic technology enables users to "feel" that they are sculpting clay.

Before he started shopping, Stevens first configured his dream system on paper. It would boast a 16.5-foot central screen, which would be rear projected so someone could walk right up to the screen and not lose the illusion of being part of the virtual environment.

Virtalis of Cheshire, England, designed the system Stevens envisioned. It also includes two Phantom haptic manipulators from SensAble Technologies Inc. of Woburn, Mass., which allow students to feel as though they're sculpting virtual clay when creating physical prototypes.

Make no mistake, the school's newest addition isn't just for engineering students, said Steve Hand, head of the Department of Creative Technologies.

"Our students follow a wide range of courses, but all feature an arts orientation with an understanding of how technology can support creativity," he said. "We provide the latest tools for them to explore in the expectation that they'll take this knowledge into the industry after graduation."

Catch one of the buses circling the airport gates, take it to your rental car company, and you've likely just taken a ride on a bus made by Gillig Corp. of Hayward, Calif.

The company manufactures fuel-efficient diesel buses not only for regional transit, but also for airports and tourist operations like Disney World. In fact, Gillig builds about 25 buses a week.

Bus maker Gillig Corp. of Hayward, Calif., recently brought in new software to organize its many CAD files and keep them within reach.

That's a lot of buses and they require a plethora of design documents, which must be tracked and stored. The company recently implemented software called Adept from Synergis Technologies Inc. of Quakertown, Pa., to manage design documents, said Jim McKittrick, CAD manager.

Because the company uses a variety of CAD systems, part drawings were sometimes difficult to track down. McKittrick implemented a feature within the software called a library card, which lets users plug in names or numbers—rather like a search engine—to locate the files by part number, designer, project name, or other criteria.

The new software has helped to streamline CAD file searches, McKittrick said.

No More Manual Beams

To automate its mass-design and mass-production processes, New Columbia Joist Co. of New Columbia, Pa., is using customized engineering software.

The steel joists that the company sells are beam-like structures used to support loads like floors and roofs.

Before implementing the new, customized software, the company took orders, obtained estimates, procured materials, and designed the joints manually. Which means that employees manually transferred their data throughout the steps involved with that process, said Drew Potts, engineering manager at New Columbia Joist.

In order to automate the entire process, the technology vendor netGuru Inc. of Waltham, Mass., customized its Stadd.pro software, which is used to automate workflow.

"The challenge is to customize Staad to our particular needs, which include handling an unusually large amount of engineering and production data," Potts said.

He expects the new application to boost the joist maker's productivity.

Curvy Blocks

A toy maker faced a dilemma: It wanted to make a curvy toy rally car from its snap-together, plastic geometric building blocks. How could kids construct a curving car from the blocks?

To solve the problem, Mega Bloks of Montreal turned to digital tools and processes commonly used by major automakers. These methods included three-dimensional scanners and reverse-engineering technology, as well as computer-aided design and computer-aided manufacturing software.

The company's design team started with a series of sketches in the style of European rally cars. The sketches were the basis for a clay model.

"We needed the car to be recognizable to the people who love rally cars, without stepping into the legalities of licensing," said Yanick Tremblay, design coordinator.

To save time and clay, the designers modeled only half the car, sculpting the clay over the company's building blocks and then using a mirror to achieve symmetry.

"We could change the shape of the car in hours rather than days," Tremblay said. "If we were creating a CAD model, we would have spent maybe a month generating the shape."

Toy maker Mega Bloks used a number of engineering technologies and processes to turn a small model of a rally car into a toy that is built from plastic blocks.

In order to get measurements, the designers reverse-engineered the clay model. For this task, they first scanned the model using equipment from Creaform Inc. of Levis, Quebec. That system includes a laser scanner that has an integrated arm, positioned by a coordinate measurement machine. The laser line sweeps across the clay model, obtaining the required measurements in approximately 10 minutes.

The designers then imported the point cloud into Geomagic Studio from Raindrop Geomagic of Research Triangle Park, N.C. Automakers use this reverse-engineering software to create CAD models for engineering analysis.

The design team then imported the initial graphics exchange specification file into the SolidWorks CAD system, the same software the company uses to design its block-style building systems.

Designers used SolidWorks to split the car into aesthetically pleasing parts that could be created from the company's blocks and would be easy for a child to build with.

"Through the process of integrating this rather high-definition shape with our very basic blocks, we needed to make sure that everything fell into place, snapped together, and was sturdy, but also safe for the child," Tremblay said.

A Ford GT has since joined the Rally Car in the Pro-Builder toy line put out by Mega Bloks.

McLaren Software of Glasgow, Scotland, has released Enterprise Engineer 2.5.1 Service Pack 1, an upgrade to its EMC Document application. The upgrade provides content management and handling for documents.

Hanley Innovations of Ocala, Fla., which makes software for aerodynamics conceptual design and analysis, has released VisualFoil Plus for airfoil two-dimensional design and analysis.

SoftMEMS of Los Gatos, Calif., has upgraded its MEMS Pro product, a CAD tool for the design and analysis of MEMS, including associated electronics and packaging.

Sycode of Goa, India, launched Mesh to Solid, a software with the capability to create a solid from a triangular or quad mesh.

To emphasize its role in viewing drawings from AutoCAD, SolidWorks of Concord, Mass., has changed the name of its eDrawings product to DWGviewer.

Wolfram Research of Champaign, Ill., has released Mathematica CalcCenter 3 software for technical mathematical calculations.

Delcam of Birmingham, England, is set to launch three new versions of its PowerInspect inspection software. In addition to an upgrade to the existing manual version of the software, the new versions will support CNC-based inspection techniques and on-machine verification.

The developer of GibbsCam computer-aided manufacturing software, Gibbs and Associates of Moorpark, Calif., has released an upgrade, GibbsCAM 2005+.

Computer-aided engineering software maker Dassault Systèmes of Paris has acquired Abaqus of Providence, R.I., which makes finite element analysis software.

Flomerics of Marlborough, Mass., now includes thermal models of Sunon fans on its SmartParts3D Web site, so engineers can incorporate the fans into thermal simulations.

CD-adapco of London has released Star-CD version 3.24 for computational fluid dynamics. It includes a general-purpose combustion model capable of simulating the combustion process within gasoline, diesel, and hybrid concept engines.

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