Blog
DASSAULT SYSTEMS DESIGN STUDIO: A LABORATORY OF FUTURISTIC IDEAS
Entering the CATIA Design Studio at Dassault Systems in Paris is like entering the future. What started as the most powerful 3D software systems in the world is also evolving to become an instrument of human progress.
Here comes Anne Asensio, former design executive at Renault and General Motors, who is giving engineering culture the design vision and human touch it deserves, and bringing CATIA technology to social, medical and human factors applications. Says Asensio, “If it can be visualized in 3D, then it becomes real. Virtual reality is a powerful way to bring to life the abstract power of ideas to make them real.”Check http://www.3dvia.com/
In the midst of a technology-driven company, Asensio has created design-oriented and interactive groups whose role is to bring the human factor into every equation. Some of her innovative ideas for the future include creating an online museum of new design creations, and using the web as an alternative space for collaboration, where team members can be more who they are. She also wants to bring 3D to the Web to offer it the third dimension it now lacks, and push the concept of online “Live Humans” formally known as Avatars, to become ever more like their human counterparts.
It starts with CATIA (Computer Aided Three Dimensional Interactive Application), originally developed by Dassault as an open platform to allow engineers, designers and manufacturers to work collaboratively on the same playing field, breaking down the barriers and silos typical of a normal pyramidal organization. With CATIA, all actors on a project can see everyone else’s progress, allowing manufacturers, engineers and designers to push, bend or leverage the combined knowledge in real time to achieve the greatest efficiency over the life cycle of a project. “Merging imagination and reality is a powerful approach because the information is shared,” says Asensio.
And sharing is what Anne Asensio is all about, particularly when she thinks about how consumers can also be part of the creative process. She experienced this first hand in the automotive industry, where the silo structure is disconnected from the market, leading to many missed opportunities and marketing failures. She says, “By bringing in consumers early in the process through 3D visual simulation, you have a direct contact with their dreams. By engaging them from the start in a collaborative intelligence, you reduce your risks.”
We are moving from seduction through branding to a relationship with consumers or clients right from the start.
If I understand Asensio well, this means that the old top-down model of product creation will be replaced by a greater responsibility towards people and their aspirations. For designers it means moving from style and aesthetics towards responsibility, the love of a product and its integrity. A big marketing revolution is already on the way, with humanist ideals and eco-design integrated into a new industrial production model.
“Mass production is out,” says Asensio. “The car industry has learned its lesson, and the ability to manufacture products with the same or greater margins is now available through technology.” Asensio cited a Chinese company that decided to make their products in France because a new high tech factory in France would surpass the cost savings and productivity possible in China. With machines that can adapt to changing demands and have the flexibility to evolve, the result is “an intelligent production model,” according to Asensio, with CATIA as part of the answer. “Why go to India or China when you can be competitive at home with this new technology?”
CATIA and its virtual 3D high quality experience has already helped Frank Gehry who was an architect who “ just wanted to do curves” innovate in architecture by virtually testing new materials like titanium, enabling him to push the limits of creative possibilities. The Dassault 7X, a new private airplane, has been virtually designed using CATIA, proving that our limitations can constantly be broken by our imagination.
“The virtual is a material like any other,” says Asensio, who sees many more opportunities for CATIA beyond just building private airplanes. In the field of medicine, for example, a virtual 3D world can help an amputee train their brain to “forget” about the lost limb, eliminating some of the painful effects that follow such a trauma. We can model complex body parts, such as the eye, to help medical professionals better understand the secrets of the human body. All challenges can be taken on in this virtual world. “Why not recreate the sensation of speed?” says Asensio, “Or alleviate the fear of flying by training people in virtual reality? Therapy, physical therapy or even education can be made more effective through high level virtual reality.
With a better understanding of the brain, we start looking at life the same way we look at the universe and its infinite possibilities. 3D technology is not new, as Asensio is quick to point out, but the experiences you can create with it are just beginning to have an impact on human issues. This is one of the challenges Dassault Systems is accepting.
From physical to virtual, from material to immaterial, the bending of reality as we know it.
It is the time to be flexible enough to understand a changing world, where technology is now meeting with the power of the imaginary and expand our vision, “ We are not getting smaller or flatter ” says Anne “ with 3D we are expanding our human world ”. If CATIA delivers on its potential to connect science with life, we have yet another tool to bend our lives into a new reality if we want to. People are demanding a new promise, one that takes them to a new level of experience rather than limiting our lives with commodity thinking, services and products that do nothing more than fulfill a financial objective. We have to project ourselves into the future and better understand it. With technology, we can follow demand in real time, or even be ahead of it.
The world is changing fast. “Nobody should forget the Titanic,” Asensio points out. “I was so taken by the process of this ship sinking, first the shock and then the realization: Who would think that something drastic could happen to this powerful boat? But then slowly, the ship starts to take water and slant aft a bit, taking on more water. Really bad, but help is on the way. Then the nosedive – you see the ship upward, disappearing fast nose down. It is mesmerizing to see how quickly it is over.”
leave your comment