Automotive Lighting Real Lamps Italia
Design in light
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Automotive Lighting is
a leader in the research,
development, production
and sale of a complete
range of technologies for
front and rear lighting, fog
lights, head- lamp cleaning
systems, leveling systems,
electronic components and central high mounted stop lamps.
The Automotive Lighting business line was formed
in 1999 from a 50-50 joint venture that merged
the lighting technology divisions of Robert Bosch
GmbH and Magneti Marelli Spa (Fiat Group). In
2001, after incorporating the Seima Group, a leading manufacturer of rear lights, Magneti Marelli became the sole owner of Automotive Lighting.
Today Automotive Lighting has grown to be a
global leader in exterior automotive lighting, and
thanks to its commitment to developing innovative
and high quality solutions, is the preferred partner of car manufacturers worldwide. The company
produces more than 66.4 Mio pieces per year, including headlights, rear
lamps, and other lighting
components. It has more
than 10,000 employees,
nearly 1,000 of which are
involved in R&D.
Headlamps and rear lamps
are becoming increasingly
important vehicle safety
components. They are also
strong brand indicators as
they incorporate important styling elements that
define the appearance and
identity of a particular vehicle model, both during
the day and night. The styling departments at Automotive Lighting work with their counterparts
at car manufacturers to ensure these safety and brand elements receive precise attention to detail.
Automotive Lighting Rear Lamps, a division of Automotive Lighting, has used solidThinking since
2001 in three phases of the product development
cycle: ideation, development, and visualization.
Product concept
One main function of rear lamps is to transport a
message from the driver to following traffic and
inform traffic about the driver’s action or intention. Another important function is to display the
vehicle’s brand-specific styling as rear lamps are
among the first elements to be recognized by following car drivers, especially at night.
In the product concept phase, solidThinking’s freeform modeling tools and integrated rendering functionalities allow for a quick styling of rear lamps.
“We start the product concept phase from a
draft provided by the customer and from a 3D
model of the car, developing different style alternatives”, said Ivan Favro,
style and graphic specialist for Automotive Lighting. “In this phase, the
solidThinking modeling
tools and the capabilities
offered by its ConstructionTree technology to
interactively modify the
shapes allow us to be fast
and flexible in our work.”
Development and visualization
Automotive lamps are complex devices. These
components are made of metallic reflectors, light
bulb or LED sources, embossed and transparent
elements such as polycarbonate lenses, that give
the component a shiny aspect. This aspect is very
complex to render into an image. Moreover, the
rendering process must consider the double usage
of automotive lamps (switched off during the day and switched on during the night).
“The challenge resolved with the help of
solidThinking is the ability of realistically rendering the lamp in any requested condition –
at day as well as at night – proposing a suite of
stylistic solutions to our customer” said Favro.
“For the visualization of lamps, rendering has become a very important tool. Rendering is in fact
the only solution able to simulate the complexity
of automotive lamps, from reflection to refraction
of transparent elements, from esthetic treatment
of plastics to metallic treatment to the power-on of all light sources and all related phenomena."
solidThinking offers Automotive Lighting Rear
Lamps a number of user benefits. It provides the
ability to reliably exchange data with engineering
software such as Catia V5. It also allows users to
create and pinpoint new style solutions and leverage a best-in-class ConstructionTree history
to save time when making changes to the design.
solidThinking’s rendering engine also acts as a
validation, analysis and visualization tool.
Automotive Lighting Rear Lamps Italia s.p.a.
Via dell’Industria, 17
I - 33028 Tolmezzo (UD)
www.al-lighting.com
Automotive Lighting Rear Lamps Italia
is a Magneti Marelli company
www.magnetimarelli.com
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