Automotive styling: Supporting engineering-styling convergence through surface-centric knowledge based engineering

The emotional impression a car imprints on a potential buyer is as equally important for its commercial success as fulfilling functional requirements. Hence, to create a positive emotional impression of a vehicle, great effort is put into a car's styling process. One of the key aspects during the early stages of the automotive design process is the convergence of styling and engineering design. While requirements stemming from engineering design are usually characterised by quantitative values, styling requirements are rather qualitative in nature. Converging these two requirement types is laborious. The present publication focuses on supporting this process through Knowledge Based Engineering. This is achieved by introducing a method which enables the designer to intuitively regard functional requirements during the styling phase. Moreover, the method improves the process of technical requirement checks regarding the shape and orientation of styling surfaces which exceed conventional package verifications.