Harley-Davidson Looks at Its Machines in REAL D

These days, when engineers at Harley-Davidson revise the design of a new motorcycle, there is a good chance that the physical prototype won’t incorporate the change. But thousands of the world’s most devoted customers will still get the chance to own that new Hog. Harley-Davidson has expanded its design horizons with the adoption of REAL D Scientific visualization technology, allowing them to more effectively leverage the virtual prototype. The company has come a long way since 1903 when the Davidson brothers and William S. Harley built three motorcycles in the Davidson family’s backyard.

“Harley-Davidson is in the business of making the world’s best motorcycles,” said Jason Graham, Harley-Davidson CAE Development Engineer. “The popularity of our machines as well as a changing marketplace have placed great pressure on our engineering teams to meet the demand for new designs. And that means finding new ways to shorten the time between concept and production.”

The explosive growth at Harley-Davidson is nothing short of an American success story. The company has gone from shipping 36, 735 motorcycles in 1986 to a staggering 177,187 in 1999. Harley-Davidson is the only major American-based motorcycle manufacturer and is a leading global supplier of premium quality, heavyweight motorcycles. The product line includes 20 traditional, factory, custom and touring motorcycles, as well as police and military motorcycles. The waiting list for some of the most popular models is six months or more.

To keep pace with the tremendous demand for its products, Harley-Davidson has been at the forefront of the search for new technologies to improve its design methods. In 1998, the company began exploring ways to reduce the number of physical prototypes built during the product design cycle. About six full prototypes are built for each new motorcycle, which can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars each. This does not include additional piece-part or subassembly prototypes, rapid prototypes, or styling models. The road to the perfect Hog is long and costly.

A New Way To View

The CAE Development team at Harley-Davidson's Engineering Systems Group in Wisconsin evaluated methods to streamline the design process that would save time and money while enhancing designs. The company was determined not to sacrifice quality for speed or cost savings.

"When we began evaluating virtual prototyping tools, our goal was to eliminate one mock-up from the process and still have the same creative and collaborative strengths of our design review process," said Graham. "We weren't sure how to satisfy the styling team because they really need the hands-on feel of a physical model to get a good idea of the true nature of a design." After evaluating many hardware and software options, the Harley-Davidson CAE Development team chose CrystalEyes® (from REAL D's subsidiary, StereoGraphics) stereoscopic visualization eyewear from StereoGraphics Corporation to work with the ImmersaDesk from Pyramid Systems, Inc. CrystalEyes worked naturally with Harley-Davidson's systems, the Silicon Graphics® Onyx2 and Octane® workstations, running Parametric Technology Corporation's DIVISION software.

“There was a very short adjustment period while the engineers and the styling team adapted to wearing the eyewear,” said Graham. “Once they got the hang of it we started seeing results very quickly.”

Stereo 3D

CrystalEyes uses Stereo3D technology to recreate how the human brain perceives depth and space— stereoscopically. Stereoscopic viewing describes how people use both eyes, each with a slightly different perspective, to perceive depth and perspective in a physical environment. CrystalEyes works with the user’s existing computer display and compatible software to continuously transmit separate left-eye/right-eye images to create the illusion that on-screen objects have depth and presence outside of the computer monitor. The eyewear’s liquid crystal shutter lenses alternately block the wrong image and transmit the correct one to create the realistic 3D effect. CrystalEyes receives its shuttering synchronization pulses from an infrared emitter attached to a UNIX or Windows NT workstation.

Eliminating the Physical Prototype

One of the designs reviewed with CrystalEyes was a relatively complex fairing and windshield assembly and Graham cited immediate benefits to the new process. “The fairing design we were reviewing was a highly styled, highly complex surface. We eliminated an entire iteration from the physical prototype cycle. The CrystalEyes Stereo3D effect and the life size capabilities provided by the ImmersaDesk really improved the styling team’s design process.”

With its design now displayed in Stereo3D, the engineers and stylists reviewing the assembly could see aesthetic features that were not clear when the design was displayed simply as a 3D model. As a result of viewing the 3D model stereoscopically, changes were made to the design and incorporated into the next prototype.

“The enhanced realism we gained from viewing the design stereoscopically had a real impact on the finished product,” said Graham. “Stereo3D provided the engineering and styling teams with the best possible understanding of the three-dimensional information presented, without using a physical prototype.”

Stereoscopic Hogs

The long-term goal for Stereo3D at Harley-Davidson is to use the technology on a complete motorcycle design. “I see great potential for additional uses of the technology,” Graham said. “I think we will definitely take it beyond design review into the actual design of power train assemblies and complete motorcycles. This will really have an impact on how we do business in the future.”