Dassault Systemes, the software house behind the aerospace industry-standard CATIA computer-aided design tools, is promising a new era of digital design collaboration and product lifestyle management from January 2014, when its full suite of 3D applications will be available on the cloud.

Addressing the company’s North American customers at a conference in Las Vegas during the week ended 15 November, chief executive Bernard Charles said Dassault Systemes has made a huge push to make all aspects of its so-called “3D Experience” platform as responsive when delivered over the web as when installed on in-house computers. The result, he promised, would be to make “services that have never been achieved before” available to North American and European users.

By selecting appropriate applications from Dassault Systemes, users – including partners at widely separated locations – can work simultaneously on the same digital mock-up of a product, says Charles. He adds that they can all use 3D technology to visualise the impact of very large amounts of data on any aspect of a product’s lifecycle or the user experience of their customers.

“We are seriously connecting the dots,” said Charles.

Speaking exclusively to Flightglobal, Dassault Systemes aerospace and defence industry vice-president Michel Tellier added that concepts of digital design crossed a new milestone with the Falcon 5X business jet programme. There, engineers at sister company Dassault Aviation succeeded in using a digital mock-up of the aircraft not only to design its “form and fit”, but also to define the function of all systems and the complete aircraft.

Saab’s Gripen Mk5 programme also did much work in this direction, said Tellier. In terms of functional mock-up, both projects built on Europe’s Neuron unmanned system programme, led by Dassault Aviation, he noted.

Source: FlightGlobal.com