ICEM Style creative design software launched

According to ICEM, it is now possible, for the first time in a concept design tool, to design in a photo-realistic modelling environment, without using third-party visualisation products, or to wait for a static rendering to be generated.

ICEM Style offers tools aimed at the creative designer, such as geometry sketching, digital taping and automatic surface generation, and features an interface that only presents the designer with the tools needed to model and visualise the design, reducing complexity and confusion.

Developed with casual users in mind, ICEM Style provides a choice of pen-based or mouse-based input methods, so that designers can quickly begin to create curves in the same way that they would normally sketch. Unique geometry sketching tools create true geometry, and allow for the emotion that is essential to curve and sketch creation, and enables designers to create sweeping freeform curves without concern for the underlying mathematics.

Concept sketches can be imported for use as the basis for digital geometry creation, with multiple sketches able to be viewed simultaneously in one window, along with engineering data, such as a vehicle packaging or power-train model.

As an aid to both original and facelift design projects, ICEM Style provides 'digital tape' tools. Multiple tape sizes, styles and colours can be saved and used for different purposes and - just as with real tape - the user is able to ?pinch' and ?pull' the tape in order to achieve the desired character line. The digital tape facility can be used on 2D background images to mark up sketches displayed on a Powerwall display system. It can be used on exterior surface or scan data to identify feature lines, shut lines or to mark up face-lift work, as well as on 3D interior design data, such as seats and instrument panels.

The digital tape facility aims to improve communication between departments, for example by enabling designers to tape directly onto Class A surface models to identify feature lines or areas that need to be amended. Previously, facelift work often meant having to re-model existing surface data. ICEM Style enables legacy data to be used again in the concept and styling phase of the development process.

With ICEM Style, the sketch curves and lines created with the geometry sketching tools can be used to create the initial surface model, for further refinement. Using the ?surface fit' tool, this surface model creation is achieved with just one menu button, without the need for the designer to be familiar with multiple surface construction types.

The high quality surface model created this way can be used for early feasibility and initial engineering analysis as well as to drive the downstream Class A surfaces development process. So while designers can be creative and un-constrained while designing in ICEM Style, Class A surface engineers and other departments can work with the same data in a structured manner, with both feeling comfortable with their own tools and their own environment.

The one-button approach to surface model creation aims to help designers to focus on the design and to be creative. The ability to iterate high quality surface models during the styling and concept design phase, together with visibility of the data earlier in downstream engineering processes, means that important design decisions can be made a lot earlier in the design process.

Support of multiple viewports allows different model variants to be worked on simultaneously in one design session. For example, different geometry variants, colour variants and camera variants of the same model can be worked on in the same session, enabling different themes and designs to be tried out concurrently, earlier in the design process.

Preset and user definable virtual studio environments enable the designer quickly to place a vehicle into a real-time or static virtual environment. These environments can be used throughout a company for digital design, marketing or management reviews.

Levels of visual quality usually associated with static ray traced images or a stand-alone visualisation product are available at the design stage, within the modelling environment. Materials, textures and soft shadows are also displayed, as well as self-shadowing and multiple reflection environments.

To provide designers with a familiar look and feel to visualisations of early designs, for example incomplete models or when areas of interest need to be explored more closely but not the complete model, ICEM Style's concept and silhouette line shading facilities can create real-time visualisations that look like hand-drawn 3D sketches. Designers can then tape onto the surface model geometry to add missing features, such as shut lines, without having to model the features. Silhouette line shading enables feature lines and key design themes to be identified more easily, and allows output of presentation images with qualities similar to a line-drawing or marker sketch.

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