BeamWise Demo For BiOS 2014

I have blogged about BeamWise™ in

• “BeamWise Blends Biophotonic and Model Based Design Expertise”
• A First look at BeamWise in Operation”

If you are interested in getting a closer look, Kinetic River will be demonstrating it in booth 8639 at the BiOS Conference February 1-2, 2014. If you don’t want to wait that long contact Giacomo Vacca directly or take a look at a new BeamWise demo video.

Here is the script for the audio track:

BeamWise™ is a software tool for automating biophotonic systems design. It captures an optical layout and generates a detailed optical system design automatically. Outputs include a 3D CAD model for visualization and fully annotated and dimensioned 2D drawings and parts list.

BeamWise also lets designers explore design options as any changes are implemented instantly.

BeamWise is implemented using Design++, a design automation platform that simplifies the capture of engineering expertise

This video will take you through the process of designing an optical system using BeamWise. We will start with a simple sketch on a whiteboard, capture key parameters in BeamWise, review the resulting 3D mechanical model, and generate an annotated and dimensioned drawings and parts lists.

Beams are the key reference points in an optical layout. BeamWise allows you to specify them directly in the mechanical design and use them as reference elements.

Optical system design is a combination of simulation and tinkering in the lab. We start by creating a new design from your optical layout and design parameters. The optical layout is entered as a vector file that lists the system components and their optical connections. From this input, BeamWise generates a detailed optical system design using real optomechanical components.

Next, BeamWise produces a 3D CAD model to visualize the new design. For design verification and release to manufacturing, BeamWise generates annotated dimensioned assembly drawings and a parts list

You have seen us define the beam paths for an optical system and use them as references for the positions of the optical and mechanical elements.

This optical layout is used as an input for BeamWise to create a new optical system design, visualize it in a 3D CAD model, produce fully annotated and dimensioned drawings, and generate a parts list for manufacturing.

We will now demonstrate how BeamWise lets designers explore design options on the fly using the beam as the reference. We will start by shortening a beam segment. This is useful when exploring how to fit the new design into a target enclosure. The design is updated automatically to reflect the new length. Next, we will redirect a beam segment: the change is propagated through the rest of the beam path on the fly.

The design changes are reflected automatically in the 2D drawings and parts list. After BeamWise generates the drawings, the designer can adjust dimensioning and add annotations as needed. The final design can be exported to PDF for easy sharing and review.

Working from a few key parameters, BeamWise can generate a 3D CAD model for the visualization of an optical system design. Dimensioned drawings and parts list are also produced automatically. Changes can be made on the fly using the beams as reference points to explore how best to fit the system into a target enclosure.

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If you are interested in getting a closer look, Kinetic River will be in booth 8639 at the BiOS Conference February 1-2, 2014.

We will also be presenting in “Session 1: Sensors and Ruggedized Systems I” on Sunday 2 February 2014 1:30 PM – 3:00 PM

Automated design tools for biophotonic systems (Invited Paper) Paper 8992-1
Author(s): Giacomo Vacca, Kinetic River Corp. (United States); Hannu Lehtimäki, Plan Energy Ltd. (Finland); Tapio Karras, Design Parametrics, Inc. (United States); Sean Murphy, SKMurphy, Inc. (United States)

Abstract: Traditional design methods for flow cytometers and other complex biophotonic systems are increasingly recognized as a major bottleneck in instrumentation development. The many manual steps involved in the analysis and translation of the design, from optical layout to a detailed mechanical model and ultimately to a fully functional instrument, are labor-intensive and prone to wasteful trial-and-error iterations. We have developed two complementary, linked technologies that address this problem: one design tool, LiveIdeas^TM provides an intuitive environment for interactive, real-time simulations of system-level performance; the other tool, BeamWise^TM automates the generation of 3D CAD mechanical models based on those simulations. The strength of our approach lies in a parametric modeling strategy that breaks boundaries between engineering subsystems (e.g., optics and fluidics) to predict critical behavior of the instrument as a whole. The results: 70 percent reduction in early-stage project effort, significantly enhancing the probability of success by virtue of a more efficient exploration of the design space.