NIIT4CAD Project

The Goal

The aim of this project is to overcome the traditional approach to surface and solid modeling of current 3D CAD systems by introducing new methodologies and technologies based on subdivision surfaces. These innovations would allow designers and engineers to transform quickly and intuitively an idea of shape in a high-quality geometrical model suited for engineering and manufacturing purposes.

pipeline architecture

The main roadblock that had limited the usage of subdivision surfaces in CAD systems so far is the fact that the quality achieved by current representations is very far from the requirements that a model must achieve for being suitable in the engineering and manufacturing phases of design. This has confined their application in situations like games or early conceptual design where the precision and quality of the shape is not important. If someone was able to extend their usage also in “precise” CAD systems this would be a great step forward because we would get the flexibility and expressive power of subdivision surfaces keeping the quality and precision needed. The second roadblock for subdivision surfaces in CAD has been the fact that the workflows and the UI used in games and in conceptual design are rather different from those needed in engineering. The usual definition and editing of surfaces in those environments rely on the usual approach of starting from a simple shape (e.g. a block) and then to add details by pulling points and/or splitting faces. But for engineering purposes we need much wider and controlled ways of defining and editing models.

immagine3pen

So this project aims at surpassing both the above roadblocks and creating a system that can represent a new generation for modelling and design.

In particular, the two main goals of this European project  are:

1)  the integration of subdivision surfaces in a CAD system. To this aim, a new CAD system paradigm with an extensible geometric kernel is introduced, where any new shape description can be integrated through the two successive steps of parameterization and evaluation, and a hybrid boundary representation is used to easily model different kinds of shapes. In this way, the newly introduced geometric description automatically inherits any preexisting CAD tools, and it can interact in a natural way with the other geometric representations supported by the CAD system.

2) the design and develop of a new interactive ways to define and modify surfaces, including a fast reverse engineering approach for quick shape reconstruction by an irregular network of curves.

The consortium

The proposed project involves six participants from Italy and France, where the main participant is EXEL (Italy) which is a R&D-performing SME. Since the project purpose is a market-oriented research and development, the participants are from University and Industry.

Their joint contribution aims at the development of three results:

- a prototype of software module for subdivision surfaces for CAD,

- a prototype of software module to allow for fast shape definition (design and editing of meshes for subdivision) and fast reverse engineering based on subdivision surfaces and using an innovative smart-pen device. These modules will be integrated in thinkdesign CAD system and Siemens Solid Edge.

- the design and realization of a prototypal wireless haptic devices, endowed with vibrotactile sensors, so called smart pen, which will be developed to enable an easy and intuitive 3D input/editing available at low cost and with low power consumption.