Approach from function to structure design at the early stage of development process : Application of the Thinking CAE method

Abstract

The synthesis process from the function design to structure design is most important for such new creative development. It is effective to combine the graphical design process, the function designs process and also the structure design process, based on a development concept. The usual prediction technology by forward CAE is poor at a creative process. "Visual Thinking", to help the imagination to new structure/design, and "Thinking CAE", to grasp the essence of new developed structure, are key technology. The construction of the digital engineering environment to digitalize directly the visual information of new image, as virtual reality, becomes needed