Chuck, while we didn't talk specifically about surface modeling work done on the D8 GTO, you just have to look at it and see it's an obvious candidate for that kind of software.
Rob, to address your points about looks. The whole design challenge with this car was to make it more "muscley" and higher performance, but also take weight out of the car even when adding some more safety functionality in the door frames. While achieving those goals, the team had to keep the car looking like its heritage which is definitely something that heralds from another time and place. Likely not a design for the masses, but for the wealthy driving enthusiasts that are the target audience.
Chuck, while we didn't talk specifically about surface modeling work done on the D8 GTO, you just have to look at it and see it's an obvious candidate for that kind of software.
Rob, to address your points about looks. The whole design challenge with this car was to make it more "muscley" and higher performance, but also take weight out of the car even when adding some more safety functionality in the door frames. While achieving those goals, the team had to keep the car looking like its heritage which is definitely something that heralds from another time and place. Likely not a design for the masses, but for the wealthy driving enthusiasts that are the target audience.
To me, this is almost a case of CAD meets kit car. This is a high performance, high cost, low volume automobile. Its design and manufacture would probably be economically unviable without the time/cost/knowledge/ leverage provided by an advanced CAD/CAE program, where you can in effect do virtual design, testing, and prototyping.
Another interesting thing about this car is its looks. Apparently the company really wanted its vehicle to stand out. It looks like it came from another era, heck, another planet. With so many recent American cars looking alike, the Donkervoort is refreshing.
Good point, Rob. As CAD and CAE become more of an integrated process as opposed to siloed tools done by different groups within engineering, there are bound to be design efficiencies. The real benefit, here, though was upping the number of prototype designs explored without upping the number of physical prototypes having to be built. Time saver and money saver.
Interesting article, Beth. That's a nice way to increase possibilities in design -- to do it with computers instead of physical prototypes. While the process may not have saved design time in this case, I would imagine it would inevitably save time as this practice becomes part of the standard design process.
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