Vistagy has announced the release of Seat Design Environment 2009 (SDE), which provides an accurate 3D master model of the trim cover from the earliest stages of design to manufacturing. SDE enables seat cover manufacturers to bring flat patterns that have been altered with 2D editing software back into the 3D CAD model. This master model definition can be used to automatically update engineering and manufacturing data to create a faster, more precise process for delivering seat covers to market.The traditional 2D-based seat trim cover design and manufacturing process requires a significant amount of translation and verbal communication to transfer data between numerous people and software packages. Creating documents, such as drawings, bills of materials (BOMs), cost assessments and sewing instructions, is a manual, error-prone task that requires frequent data re-entry. This traditional process is highly inefficient because there is no single master model containing all the most up-to-date information and, most importantly, there is no way to obtain timely design feedback.
Previous versions of SDE have always provided a way for data and documentation, such as flat patterns, costing information, sew reports and BOMs, to be automatically created from a 3D CAD master model. SDE 2009 enhances the master model by providing an environment integrated into commercial CAD systems where geometric and non-geometric information can be captured within a single 3D CAD model throughout the entire design process; from initial generation of flat patterns to final detail design as required for manufacturing. Now design and manufacturing engineers and their suppliers can efficiently create and modify seat trim cover product definitions and generate associated engineering data automatically for use throughout a company and its supply chain.
SDE 2009 also provides enhanced capabilities for communicating design information, generating documentation, simulating producibility and defining seat covers. Engineering as well as manufacturing drawings can now be created with SDE 2009. This includes the ability to show and hide cutouts in drawings on sewing reports and engineering drawings as well as the ability to highlight colours on sewing reports to show seam types in isometric and flat pattern views.
This improves the communication of the designer's intent to the manufacturing team, speeding overall development time and increasing accuracy. With improved display of producibility results, the simulation can be inspected and used to identify issues that need to be addressed to make better flat patterns more easily. There are now more options for creating attachments (by centre point and length, by start and end points, and by point and length) and for creating manufacturing sew lines (by curve, attachment or backing pad).
