With a helping hand from Microsoft
FoMoCo wants to say goodbye to clay models and hello to virtual reality when designing its future models.
What does that mean? Well, it's too early to say when will the Blue Oval make the full swap from clay to visualization software. However, the carmaker has had its designers play around with Microsoft's HoloLens technology for the past year or so.
Compared to the traditional method (i.e., clay models) a hologram allows the exploration of shapes, sizes and textures in a matter of hours or minutes instead of weeks or months.
“We may not be able to teleport yet, but HoloLens allows us to review full-size 3D designs with designers and engineers around the world in real time. And we’ve only just scratched the surface, so possibilities for the future seem almost limitless. This is very exciting.”
Craig Wetzel, manager of Ford Design technical operations
Using wireless headsets connected to a PC, designers can alter the 3D images, flip or study them from different perspectives.
Moreover, the headsets can be set up to allow access to multiple members, so designing a hood, for example, can happen as a team effort.
Since we brought you here, check out what we learned after driving the new 2017 Ford Fiesta supermini.