ALS brings the ideas of scientists,such as this photo electron emission microscope, to life with the help of CoCreate software.
Scientists at the Advanced Light Source (ALS) division of Berkeley Lab work side-by-side with engineers to develop products used for experimental science. Often times, the scientists do not have a good definition of a project. They just know where they want to start, and designs evolve from what the scientists are shown and what the engineers are able to do.
To support this dynamic development process, ALS (www.lightsources.org) uses history-free 3D dynamic modeling software from CoCreate (www.cocreate.com) that gives the division's engineers freedom to easily explore new ideas without having to plan modeling steps in advance of designing. They can explore options and quickly change designs, add ideas and remove what does not work.
ALS's CoCreate package includes OneSpace Designer Modeling, FEA Advanced Design and 3D Library Design modules, CoCreate data management integrated with downstream document control, and OneSpace.net to support collaboration with outside vendors.
With the CoCreate package, ALS engineers and scientists now collaborate throughout the development process, which increases quality while eliminating the cost of extra design cycles and prototypes. Both groups get projects going faster with the reuse of existing designs controlled within an integrated datamanagement knowledge base. They can then rapidly repurpose existing designs into new and different products to shave weeks or months off development time.
Using 2D software, ALS scientists waited until they saw the physical product before they would give feedback on how to change it. These scientists can now get involved early on and better understand tradeoffs thanks to 3D modeling. And because the CoCreate system is history-free, engineers can work with and modify designs from other 3D CAD environments as if those designs were created natively.
When engineering releases drawings and models for procurement or manufacturing, CoCreate's data-management product shares completed design information with the organization's system of record. An automated process systematically creates PDF documents for released drawings and transfers 2D and 3D design data to the document-control center for access by the rest of the organization.
