PARIS, April 5 /PRNewswire/ -- think3, a leading supplier of industrial design and product development solutions, today announced the next-generation of its computer-aided-design system. The thinkiD DesignXpressions Series(TM), being previewed at MICAD, the leading European forum for product design, production and lifecycle management, introduces a completely different way to think about industrial design.

thinkiD DesignXpressions delivers on the promise of "Target-Drive Design," a radically new approach to industrial design that frees designers from the technology constraints of traditional computer-based systems. DesignXpressions improves the design process and shaves 70-90 percent off product cycle time by automatically translating design into manufacturable products. The result is not only better industrial design but also a substantial cost savings and competitive advantage in a range of industries, from automotive to consumer products, where time-to-market is critical to success.

"The prior generation of surface and solids modeling tools took a 'Lego' approach to design, involving basic sets of building blocks to assemble shapes that were difficult, if not impossible, to modify to correspond to the designer's vision and intent," said Joe Costello, president and CEO of think3. "thinkiD DesignXpressions is more analogous to sculpting tools that allow designers to flexibly shape the space around objects and fluidly create the objects they envision. This is what we mean by 'Target-Driven Design' and it opens up a whole new world of creativity. The result is more design options, better designs, and a lot more customer choice."

Designers reach their design intent by assigning "targets," which can be specific points to be reached, or curves, or even the desired reflection of light on a reference shape. thinkiD DesignXpressions allows designers to focus exclusively on product shape and to express themselves in their own way, then translates their design intent automatically and completely into engineering models for analysis and manufacture. Resulting from the evolution of think3's Global Shape Modeling (GSM) technology introduced in 2001, the new offering is based on think3's pioneering efforts in developing a hybrid modeler that enables designers to create anything by mixing and matching surface and solids modeling to best reach their design goals. Since then, think3 has built upon the foundation of the GSM technology to support a fundamental shift in the way designers and others along the product design/development continuum can use computer-aided design (CAD) software to facilitate both design and production. With today's announcement of the next- generation thinkiD, think3 has begun to realize its goal of "Target-Driven Design."

"thinkiD DesignXpressions is aimed primarily at the industrial designer, and enables the designer to concentrate on imagination and innovation without having to worry about computer algorithms -- basically getting rid of the math that has burdened designers for so long," said Alain Massabo, think3 vice president of R&D and the architect of thinkiD DesignXpressions. "I started developing computer-aided design and engineering systems in 1971 in the aerospace industry and came to realize that more powerful tools would allow users complete freedom in the design process. I joined think3 in 1999 to pursue this vision and, with today's announcement, we're starting to realize the benefits from increasing creativity in industrial design." Massabo believes this launch marks only the beginning of how Target Driven Design will be able to open new avenues of expressions for designers, such as "mood" and design intent such as tension or convexity. think3 plans to release new features throughout the year as they are developed.

Closing the technology gap in the product design lifecycle

Over the past half decade, a trend in industrial design has emerged -- the specialization of the tools used in the product design process. The stylists and designers at the front-end of the process wanted more intuitive, flexible tools that allowed them to create aesthetic designs and surface models. Meanwhile, the engineers at the back-end of the process wanted tools that gave them the ability to manufacture solid parts and products with precision and accuracy. This led to a specialization in technology that has fractured the entire product design process -- a separation between "form" and "fit and function."

Today, some computer-aided industrial design offerings cater to stylists and modelers, while others focus primarily on engineers. This specialization creates a technology gap in the product design lifecycle -- the modification process -- that currently consumes more than 70 percent of the entire process. Product design can fundamentally be divided into three distinct phases: 1) the initial conceptualization and design, 2) modification, and 3) design completion for manufacturing. An integrated technology platform that seamlessly supports the product design lifecycle from phase 1 through phase 3 is required to support the movement of design information between disparate systems in the design process to avoid the loss of data, the need for extensive design rework and the decreased productivity that results at every step in the process.

thinkiD DesignXpressions' "Target-Driven Design" solution breaks from this paradigm -- and reconnects form, fit and function. thinkiD's revolutionary GSM "technology bridge" allows stylists and engineers to complete their surface and solids modifications in one system, while retaining both design intent and data integrity, thus eliminating the technology gap in the modification phase that has existed for years. Form, fit and function now can co-exist throughout the product design process.

In addition to revolutionizing the front-end design process, think3 is the first industrial design systems vendor to offer a complete, seamless solution that can take a part or product through the entire product design process: from conceptual design, surfacing and solids to modification, visualization and engineering. In this way, think3's highly adaptable and open technology platform will transform the industry's product design process from "art to part."

New industrial design technologies cut costs, speed time to market

thinkiD DesignXpressions' provides industrial designers with a number of new Global Shape Modeling technology breakthroughs, now called GSM3, the only creation/modification tool that creates rapid and accurate variations, modifications or refinements anytime, anywhere in the product design process, allowing for faster iterations, unlimited design creativity and no rebuilding. Harnessing GSM3 results in time savings of more than 90 percent in the modification phase and up to 75 percent in total development costs.

New thinkiD DesignXpressions powered by GSM3 features include: -- Reflection Highlights - the first and only technology that allows a designer to drive the modification of a shape by changing a reflection light on the shape itself. GSM3 will compute the shape that will generate the desired reflection light creating a highlight. This can be accomplished in 10 minutes or less, versus the 40 to 50 hours required using traditional methods, and represents a dramatic improvement in the realization of design intent through technology. -- Real-time Dynamic Rendering - the only technology that allows designers to create and make live modifications to a model (designers no longer have to worry about doing the math) while simultaneously being able to see the artistic results in a rendered form, providing a level of realism on the screen never before possible. -- Adaptive Measures - With this new technology, designers will be able to refer and link the construction of new 2-D and 3-D geometries to existing ones without the need to use calculators or spreadsheets, making design much easier and faster, while providing more powerful modeling capabilities.

Additionally, DesignXpressions features a completely updated user interface, created with the input of hundreds of hours of user-group input. Much more than simply a comfortable industrial design-oriented interface, it features the first of its kind "user-driven context menu," which is a drag- and-drop, easy-to-use, customizable tools menu that allows designers to create their own design workflow. Interactions can now be tailored to design workflow so that the right tool will appear at the right time it is needed.

About think3, Inc.

think3 provides innovative, next-generation industrial design solutions for the industrial design industry and is a leading supplier of product development solutions to mid-sized manufacturers worldwide. Customers include BMW, Audi, Maytag, Alessi and GE Medical Devices. Overall, the company enables more than 5,000 manufacturers to achieve dramatic gains in competitiveness and profitability by optimizing their product development process. think3's best- of-class products, services and unique business delivery model lower manufacturers' risks and remove barriers to successful implementation. With headquarters in Cincinnati and offices throughout Europe, Asia and North America, the privately held company has been leading innovation for more than 20 years. For more information, visit http://www.think3.com/ .

CONTACT: Ann Willey of think3, +1-513-263-6779, ann.willey@think3.com

Web site: http://www.think3.com/