Many corporations have compared and evaluated product design by the finished drawings of proposals during the design phase using computer graphics from the 1990s, such as architectural competitions in general contractors and evaluating automobile body shapes in carmakers. Now, open-source software has made it possible for individuals and NPOs with small budgets to conduct these evaluations. It means that individuals can opinion on the design stage, the upstream product manufacturing process. Individuals specifically might be opinion leaders to agree on their desirability by comparing the proposals, while feasibility and viability studies with the finished drawings. Therefore, the 3D design workflow should start from 3D CAD, not the 3D modeling functions of computer graphics software. Also, the computer graphics may be a simulation tool, not only a presentation tool, for the feasibility studies. I want to show the workflow from FreeCAD as a 3D CAD to Radiance as an optical simulation program and POV-Ray and Blender as presentation tools, especially for the beginners in computer graphics and digital art. In this report, I use mesh data as the CAD data for the adaptivity to the product design since the meshes adapt to all of the product's shapes and are available for exporting and importing. However, the mesh data have some surface smoothing technique difficulties. Therefore, I want to mention some solutions to the issues while describing the workflow procedure.

April 25, 2022

Yoichi Mizomata