In the consumer durable goods arena, perceived quality is a key component of product brand management. Increasingly, high perceived quality - that impression of quality that a potential customer gets when viewing a product for the first time - has a positive affect on the buying process.

This, coupled with the market demands for increased product innovation, shorter time to market and greater affordability, means that product design and development teams need to be able to identify and resolve critical fit and finish issues early in the design process, when the cost of change is lower.

aesthetica combines tolerance analysis with high quality design visualisation of the 3D digital product model to give you a clear understanding of how a product and its constituent parts will vary during the manufacturing and assembly processes.

aesthetica allows you to interactively edit tolerances and see the results immediately on the 3D digital product model. You can take account of variations to see exactly what your product will look like to potential customers when they first see it - and whether or not it will be acceptable.

aesthetica can be used to support critical aesthetic assessment activities at any time during the digital product development process.

• The concept stage - aesthetica supports feasibility studies to identify the most appropriate concepts by measuring the ideal, or nominal values against typical manufacturing tolerances to expose potential problems. Designers can set acceptable targets, taking variation into account and refining the design to reduce or eliminate sensitivities without compromising the visual character.
  
  
• The design stage - aesthetica enables you to visually review the proposed measurement plans on critical visible surfaces before the design is finalised. You can perform multiple iterations of locator analyses to determine which locator scheme has the least effect on the appearance of the product and to validate targets alongside the manufacturing and assembly processes.
  
  
• The engineering stage - aesthetica helps to resolve conflicts between design aspirations and manufacturing reality by visualising full design and detail - not just at measurement points. You can perform flexible part and assembly behaviour studies to gain insight into tolerance analysis, using advanced diagnostic capabilities, including flexibility, distortion and pitting, misalignment and surface defects and the impacts of stress transmission.
  
  
• The pre-production stage - aesthetica enables finished product and cosmetic audits to refine and improve the final output by visualising gaps with extreme or test conditions and comparing them with the nominal digital models. You can calibrate the audits and visualise limits of acceptable variation.
  
  
• The production stage - aesthetica enables what-if studies to help resolve known production issues and to provide on-going quality assurance. Parameters can be set and agreed for quality assurance and these can be fed back for use at the concept stage of the next generation of the product.
  

Real, measurable benefits

aesthetica helps you cut development times through quicker decisions earlier in the development process, reduce costs through fewer physical prototypes and increase perceived quality for greater customer appeal.