LucidShape CAA V5 software designs automotive lighting within CATIA V5
Believed to be the only complete workflow for automotive lighting design and visualisation in the CATIA V5 environment, Synopsys has released the LucidShape CAA V5-based v2020.06 software. It offers powerful design features and “stunning photorealistic rendering capabilities” for headlight, tail light and signal lights, says Synopsys.
The software introduces two new modules—Design and Visualise—that enable designers to quickly conceptualise and design automotive lighting products and generate physics-based, photorealistic images that accurately depict how headlights, tail lights, and signal lights will look in real life.
LucidShape CAA V5 includes features to improve ease-of-use, such as CATIA Design Tables for efficient simulations of multiple model configurations. There is also improved design-for-manufacturing capabilities for automotive light guides. According to Synopsys, designers can achieve right first time designs and faster time to market with CATIA-integrated optical and mechanical modelling and fully parametric features.
The Design Table enables efficient, in-depth investigations throughout the design process, without the need for model setup or configuration steps. It can evaluate multiple design options such as material choices for a component. It also streamlines the analysis of manufacturing and assembly tolerances and their impact on photometry. Tolerance perturbations can be entered into the Design Table, the data can be associated with a simulation and the user can specify the configurations that should be queued for subsequent simulation.
Geometry creation tools allow users the freedom to focus on overall design objectives rather than the implementation details of complex optics. Tools like MacroFocal design features help designers rapidly conceptualise and design freeform reflectors and lenses that meet photometric and aesthetic requirements.
Another tool is photorealistic visualisation. This is used in the creative process to evaluate the aesthetics of a lighting design, and in the engineering process to evaluate optical feasibility based on uniformity, brightness, and manufacturability. The LucidShape CAA Visualise module generates physics-based photorealistic images. Features like the Environment Light Source and the Human Eye Vision Image tool augment the realism in a scene and enable designers to virtually evaluate how the human eye will perceive a headlight, tail light, or signal light.
Another feature designed to improve ease-of-use is the Light Guide Design module which provides designers with the capability to efficiently create light guides with fillets that conform to manufacturing constraints. Designers can create light guide designs faster, optimise light distributions and uniformity, and achieve better as-built performance, Synopsys claims.
LucidShape CAA V5 Based v2020.06 is available now. Customers with a current maintenance agreement can download this version from the Synopsys website using their SolvNetPlus account, or obtain the software from their local distributor.
