PTC takes a firm hold of generative design, simulation and MBD in Creo 9. “Generative Design is quickly becoming Creo's most sought-after functionality,” says PTC’s VP and head of Creo, Brian Thomson.

PTC launched the ninth version of its CAD software Creo just before the start of summer. As expected, it is equipped with a range of practical performance improvements, new features, and shortcuts to hasten product design. These improvements are always useful and can, of course, contribute to increased efficiency in design work. But there is an interesting PLM story within the release—one that deserves more attention than it has received so far.

This PLM story revolves around the potential that lies within artificial intelligence (AI), which is based on technologies that seamlessly connect the CAD work with increasingly important sub-PLM elements such as generative design, simulation and analysis, or additive manufacturing. Another interesting angle is Model-Based Definition (MBD) which also shows great potential where 3D design—instead of the more traditional 2D approach—is used in manufacturing.

In today’s article, I discuss this PLM story with PTC’s VP and head of Creo, Brian Thomson.

“Creo 9 is an important release, and our customers’ feedback has played a big role in making that happen,” Thomson says. “We have, as you point out, made core improvements at the feature level, like the split-surface capability and stronger management of design intent to benefit our users. But we’ve also bet on advanced technology that transforms product design. This has been given a large space in the version—not least related to things that support and facilitate simulation, generative design and additive manufacturing.”

Thomson also points out that Creo has been strengthened in terms of Model-Based Definition, an area that is increasingly important.

“But at the end of the day, all of these improvements are about helping engineers get their best designs to market faster,” says Thomson.

PTC’s Creo generative design extensions are fully integrated into the CAD and PLM simulation environment. Other software solutions require the importing and exporting of load cases and geometry. World-leading truck company Volvo Group used this solution when developing a bracket for its 11-liter 325 HP Volvo Trucks engine. Keep in mind the fact that around a year ago, Volvo Group decided to consolidate its CAD and PLM environments on PTC’s Creo and Windchill. “Our solution is fully integrated into Creo and is a seamless part of any design workflow, from concept to simulation to production,” comments Brian Thomson, the CAD division’s VP and general manager.

Why is Generative Design a Future Technology?

With generative design, you can create sharper products with the help of the design software’s algorithms. With AI tools and an iterative process, the program “itself” produces several proposals that meet the solutions whose parameters have been entered in advance. Instead of designing a part or a component and then using, for example, strength analysis to check that the product has achieved the desired properties, generative design with a combination of inputs can turn this multi-step approach upside down. Instead, the designer can focus on fine-tuning by selecting specific outputs or changing input values, ranges and distribution. The result is an optimized product that is difficult to match with the usual “manual” processes. In the light of the capabilities available to create 3D printed parts, many of these generative designs can also become a reality.

“As soon as any single competitor adopts a truly transformative technology, like generative design, others must either follow suit or fall behind,” says PTC’s Brian Thomson. From reducing product weight to parts consolidation and reduced time to market, the benefits of generative design can be felt from the design iteration stage down to engineering for manufacturability, he asserts.

It’s Always Challenging to Change Ways of Working

With generative design’s time in the sun, it’s starting to play an important role both in terms of design for additive manufacturing and simulation.

On the other hand, innovations of this nature take time to break through widely. In part, because it is always challenging to change the way designers work; and partly because of complexity in the solutions for generative that were put into the CAD suites of PLM systems during the early years of this technology’s development. In this, the technology was affected by things that often apply to innovations: they have simply not been easy-to-use, efficient and integrated enough to break through into widespread use.

But a lot has happened in just the last few years and PTC has been at the forefront of the development train, such as through the purchase of Frustum at the end of 2018.

A foundational part of the generative technology is topology optimization. As engineers increasingly move product design and development into the computational realm, topology optimization serves as a “stepping-stone” for generative design to get straight to the best embodiment of a design. In short, it is a necessary building block in the generative design solutions of Creo and other software developers.

“Creo’s Most Sought-After Functionality”

Has generative design caught on in the ranks of PTC’s users? It is coming into use more and more, but we are only at the beginning of a development trend that will have a very significant impact on design work, claims Thomson.

“Generative design is becoming more important because our customers operate in highly competitive markets. As soon as any single competitor adopts a truly transformative technology, like generative design, others must either follow suit or fall behind. In this case, any customer who adopts Creo’s Generative Design will see their designs drop in weight, increase in strength, enter the market sooner and have greater first-time success. Additionally, customers who integrate this technology into their standard processes will begin to see the long-term benefits of an engineering staff with improved understanding, articulation and intuition of the problems that they solve.”

Generative Design is quickly becoming Creo’s most sought-after functionality. The image above is from a new video in which Volvo and PTC reveal that the entire subassembly was created using artificial intelligence. The software even let Volvo select from designs optimized for aluminum machining, casting and additive manufacturing.

Furthermore, Thomson asserts that the technology of generative design is itself a competitive market, and Creo continues to innovate in order to stay ahead of its peers.

“Customers choose Creo Generative Design because of its speed, accuracy and seamless integration within Creo,” he says, and claims that, “Creo’s unique offer of both on-premise and cloud functionality through GTO (Generative Topology Optimization) and GDX (Generative Design Extension) gives users unbridled power and flexibility. As a result, Generative Design is quickly becoming Creo’s most sought-after functionality—and one about which we get the most interest. We are proud that customers such as Volvo Trucks and Jacobs Engineering have embraced the benefits of generative design.”

With PTC’s Creo 9 version comes some powerful MBD and detailing tools. The surface finish symbols have been modernized to the most recent standard, and the workflow for their creation, placement and editing is updated. Particularly, at PMI annotations, the ability to indicate semantic definitions is improved with STEP AP242 support for downstream applications and importing such information to Creo Parametric.

Continued Improvements to MBD

Model-Based Definition is another PLM hot topic that PTC addresses in the Creo 9 version. Specifically, regarding working with a 3D model that contains both product and manufacturing information (PMI), as opposed to the traditional methodology of 3D models combined with 2D drawings for manufacturing information.

Thomson notes that PTC has made a number of interesting investments in model-based product design, particularly in surface treatment and welds, which means users can include specialized downstream manufacturing information directly on the model for better efficiency and communication.

Why is MBD Worth Betting On?

To provide some background: A 3D model containing both product and manufacturing information (PMI) provides manufacturers with a single, rich and accessible source of “truth” for all mechanical hardware in a product—something that should sound familiar from a PLM standpoint. That’s what MBD is all about: documenting the information required to manufacture and inspect parts and assemblies using 3D models.

On the bottom line, MBD can provide big-time gains. Among other things, a study from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in the U.S. has shown that MBD can reduce the time taken in the “design-to-manufacturing” and “-to-inspection” processes by 78.4 percent. These are, of course, fantastic numbers and most people who have switched to PMI-annotated 3D models can probably agree that it meant a lot in terms of lead time creation in the processes.

More effective with MBD. With all dimensions, tolerances and notations embedded within the original—“the single source of truth”—everyone can refer to the same facts.

MBD Means That Everyone Works from the Same Knowledge Base

But why is MBD more efficient than the traditional 2D drawing method?

There are several reasons, but on a principal level, the fact that the 3D annotations in the CAD model are semantic is significant. Being semantic means that other software can understand them. Instead of sharing a PDF or a printout of a drawing in the supply chain, you share either the original built-in part file or a neutral STEP file. When these files are opened in CAM software, or Coordinate Measuring Machine (CMM) inspection software, the software recognizes the 3D annotations and their geometric references. This not only eliminates the work of translating the information from a drawing to the downstream software, it also goes faster and reduces the risk of mistakes.

“Model-Based Definition is an obvious advantage because with all dimensions, tolerances and notations embedded within the original ‘single source of truth,’ everyone can refer to the same facts. In this way, everyone works from the same knowledge base and ambiguity may be unequivocally eliminated,” says Thomson. He also connects this with generative design.

“Generative design extends this concept into the modeling environment itself. Since each Creo Generative Study captures not only the optimum geometry, but the problem to be solved, the objective sought and the operating constraints, each generative design writes a story of design intent. Other methods of design leave you with little more than a punctuation mark.”

“No Tool Can Guarantee Innovation”

In general, Thomson sums up the new Creo 9 edition and its PLM improvements as follows:

“The enhancements to Creo 9 give form to our belief that, while no tool can guarantee innovation, the correct tool can create circumstances more favorable to it. Manufacturing is a game of incremental improvements. Creo 9 helps product designers do more with less—and do it faster and at higher quality. We would also point out that, in an era where sustainability is rightly coming to the fore, enhancements to simulation and generative design can have follow-on impacts for our customers beyond an improved design—such as more efficient use of materials, fewer prototypes and fewer natural resources needed to design those products and make them.”