Trek and CAD
A while back, I saw a show on the Discovery Channel that showed some of the process used by Trek to design Lance Armstrong's bike for last year's Tour De France. The show had a few scenes with computer screens showing CFdesign software, but didn't actually identify any of the software used by Trek.
I was reminded of this a couple of days ago, when I saw the Lance Armstrong bike frame displayed in the product showcase at SolidWorks World.
It makes a good customer success story: Trek uses SolidWorks. But there's more to it than that.
Trek has, for some time, used Alias software to design bikes. Alias is an industrial design program -- very capable of doing the swooping and aerodynamic designs necessary for high-end bikes. Also, Trek has had great success using thinkID from think3.
A couple of days ago, I got a chance to talk to Chris Carlson, a senior industrial designer for Trek Bicycle Corporation. I asked him about Alias (I didn't think at the time to ask him about think3). He told me that, a few years ago, the company management pretty much thought they needed Alias, because, at the time, other tools couldn't do the job. Things have changed quite a bit since then, and Trek has become a big fan of SolidWorks.
Ah, yes... the mystique of Alias. The thing is, Alias is incredibly powerful software, offering tremendous control for class-A surfaces. In the world of industrial design, using Alias is kind of like owning a Ferrari -- it's a good way to impress the neighbors.
But Alias ain't the only game in town, and hasn't been for a long time. thinkID, it turns out, has become Trek's tool of choice for making time-critical design changes. I can understand that. Though lost a bit in all the noise of CAD marketing, think3 has some incredibly powerful tools for parametrically editing explicit surfaces.
Beyond this, SolidWorks has developed a respectable set of capabilities for dealing with surfaces. Given that it is Trek's choice for doing mechanical design, it makes sense that they'd want to use it where they could for frame design.
The moral of the story, if there is one, is that engineers need the ability to use whatever tools are best to accomplish their jobs. I'll skip the rant about how interoperability is so important -- if you know me, you know that am a major proponent of open data formats and interoperability.
You can check out an interesting story on Trek's Advanced Concept Group, and their work on Lance Armstrong's time trial bike at Design News
Evan Yares
1 Comment
Reader Comments (1)
You wrote, "thinkID, it turns out, has become Trek's tool of choice for making time-critical design changes."
Well, as it turns out, this isn't correct and is quite a stretch for anything Chris might have said (we have 2 people using Think3 out of 13 designers). The tools of choice are AliasStudioTools and Solidworks. Think3 is a supplement.
The reality is we have the opportunity to use both Solidworks and Alias where it makes most sense to any given project. On our carbon projects, it sometimes makes sense to use Alias due to the complex transitions and need for high continuity. Solidworks is getting close yet it still has a long way to go...I know because I have made it my focus to create the same shapes with SW as Alias and what I have found is both programs have strengths and weaknesses...sometimes Alias shines and sometimes Solidworks does. As far as Alias being a Ferrari and impressing neighbors...well, if you have something fast, sexy and red and you can drive like a professional then why not?