CAD and CAE integration through scientific visualization techniques for illumination design

Engineers tend to use different software to perform tasks such as geometry modeling, database management, numerical analysis, and visualization. This may cause decrease of productivity and loss of information during the conversion process between different data file formats. This paper presents a computer aided design (CAD) and computer aided engineering (CAE) system integration using scientific visualization tools and techniques. It deals with the development of a 3D CAD add-in for lighting analysis which uses the CAD model as 3D interface for creating a lighting scheme, processing, and visualizing 2D or 3D illuminance fields. Visualization features as color and contour mapping were developed using the visualization toolkit (VTK) toolkit. The application integrates all functionalities of the 3D CAD with tools for light sources database management, pre-processing, processing, and post-processing of illuminance fields in a single environment. This approach increases productivity and eliminates the need for different software.