Virtual Design for Real Cars

FERNANDO SAAL: So, welcome everybody. My name is Fernando Saal. I'm working for Porsche, and I am very happy to be here today. And I'm also very happy that I see a lot of people got here this morning. I mean, it's 8:00, so thank you in advance for that.

You all know the title of the AU this year-- "The Future of Making Things." I think, in my opinion, that's a perfect title for a design studio because in a design studio we really do, or try to do, the future. We try to design cars that will come in five, 10, 15, 20 years on the market. But we will talk today not just about car design. We will talk about the virtual design of the real cars. So everything that gets together inside a car design development.

We were here two years ago talking about mostly car visualization and how you can improve your processes so that also all the departments can fulfill their targets. This year we will go one level up. We'll not just talk about visualization and CGI, we will also talk about everything else concerning car design at Porsche.

So let's start with this crazy cloud here. I will pick up some of these stars-- some very important topics-- and after that you will see why I choose this kind of visualization for my presentation today. Did any one of you get the chance yesterday to see the presentation from Greg from Disney? He did a presentation about innovation and leadership. And he said one very important sentence-- that your company really needs a vision or a mission claim, something that the employees know why or what they are doing in the company. So we start there as well.

I'll give you an example. Greg said, well, Pixar's vision is-- we make family-friendly blockbusters. So that's something very important for them, so that they always know when they do their movies, OK, be aware. It has to be family-friendly and, of course, it has to be a blockbuster.

So what does it mean for Porsche? We at Porsche-- we also have a vision-- it's just in one sentence. We wanted to be the most successful brand for exclusive and supportive mobility. Please keep that in mind. It's always a challenge, of course, to be a most successful brand. You always have competitors that are faster. Sometimes they look nicer. No, just kidding. They don't.

[LAUGHTER]

But I think you know what I mean. Next step is the vision-- the mission. Sorry. The mission. The mission will tell you why you are doing this. So here is a really famous statement of one of our founders. He said, I searched for but couldn't find the car that I was dreaming of, so I decided to build it myself. What does it mean? We are always looking for cars, for concepts, that are not on the market yet and that have a great difference to the competitors. So this is the vision and the mission we have at Porsche that every employee knows, and this is a kind of a basis before you start doing anything concerning car development.

So what's the next step? You might think, OK, now let's take a piece of paper and bring our first ideas. Let's visualize our first ideas. Well, there's still something missing-- the DNA. So what does that mean?

Well, at Porsche we have a specific design DNA. It's very important that your product has a difference to the competitors. So it's important to have some kind of a brand identity that customers see at one glance-- OK, this car is a Porsche. Doesn't matter it's a 911 or a Cayenne or a Macan. You see it at one glance.

And how do we do that? Well, we developed this design DNA and we can put it on every car we have. For example, in the front the hood is lower than the fenders. That's something you see on all our cars, not just on the 911.

Next thing, when you go to the side view we have a Porsche typical fly line. And when we go to the back one of the most important things, of course, the lines that are extending through the rear and, of course, the strong and pronounced shoulders we have in the back.

So now you have the real base with the Porsche DNA, the vision, and the mission, you can start your ideation. This will be our next point then. So with that in mind, our designers start doing this kind of stuff. It's very impressive how they do that, always keeping in mind-- you already see it in the sketches, the proto-DNA. And here especially you'll see an example-- my colleague [INAUDIBLE] is doing the design for the new Cayenne, re-released this summer.

So that has nothing to do with virtual design. Right? But it's the first step. So you see some sketches now of this new Cayenne done with a pencil on paper and, of course, with digital tools like Photoshop or Sketchbook.

So what comes next? Well, now we really get virtual. We start building this car in the digital world using tools like Alias. So we see here the data set in an abstract way. And here is, like, a screen capturing how we are building up data, modifying data with Alias. I mean, it's not rocket science. I think all of you-- well, from the automotive industry-- has used these tools from Autodesk to make your surfaces.

But we are not just using Alias, of course. We use Alias Surface, Alias Design. We also use Maya for our sketchings in the interior. And there are also two other products that are not yet from Autodesk, but might be very interesting for you. [LAUGHS] It's Modo for modeling soft parts, especially seats in the interior. And concerning generative design, it's Grasshopper that we use at the moment for very complex surface modeling. So these are the tools for the digital modeling.

So what else do we have in our virtual design cloud? Let's go through the next one. We still have the classical way of designing, of developing a car in our design studios. We still have Clay modeling. I know that a few REMs don't use clay modeling anymore.

Well, for us it still makes sense because at the end you still have a real model that you sell. So at least you have to look at it in real while you are developing the design. But what we changed is the amount of clay models we had in the past. We reduced them, of course. So we reduced it, but at the same time we improved the quality of our models. And we did that, of course, with data and, our next topic, with 3D printing.

So we're using 3D printers from Stratasys to print a lot of parts, a lot of detailing especially in the interior, but also in the exterior. With that we are very flexible, very agile, and we can react very fast. Here you see an example, a gear shift. You see here the quality of the gear shift. You see the leather, that the other parts should look like metal. And here you see it in our interior model so it fits perfect, and you get a really good impression of the interior.

So what might be the next thing? One of the most important things is still missing. You already see it. Loading Cayenne VR model. Of course one of the big topics is still the visualization of that car for board member presentations or for DKMs or whatever you need in your car design development process. So in this case we use VRED for visualizing our exterior and interior design. We have around about 70 million polygons in our models. And-- yeah.

That's a little bit how it looks like. You see here a screen-capturing from our VRED file, how it looks like. You see here the detailing. Even the batch on the rims is completely modeled. Of course, we have all the colors in the interior. We have modeled surfaces. We have here the stiching, all done in our design studio for getting a very good quality. Different light setups, of course, with different surroundings in our files that we can choose so that the designer and board members can perfectly see our VR model and make their decisions.

Here you see some kind of examples, how we do presentation. We do it on a Monday tour, on a power wall that's right between the real, physical model. We also do renderings, of course, out of VRED. You see some examples here. That's more like a one-click rendering. We can do with our standards who have implemented in our VRED files. That's so far concerning design visualization.

There is still one other point, of course. That's the topic CGI. We're not just doing open GL presentations like you saw the slides before. Of course we also do some movies. And it has a certain reason why we are doing this.

It has two main topics-- realism and motion. Realism-- well, why? We have our own claim to always be best in class. Well, at least we try to, even in our design development. We have a quality-orientated decision-making process. So, in that case, we really need very high quality. And with that it's always easier-- the transportation of the design and the idea behind. So when your model looks really good it's always easier for the board members to make their decisions.

And why are we doing motion animations? Well, the thing is, it gives you a different impression compared to still images. You have an advanced feeling for color and for shape when you see your design in motion, and you can put your product in context. This one was one of the most important charts we showed two years ago. Of course, in our design department we, of course, do design visualization. But there are also some other departments that can use our model to fulfill their targets.

So, for example, we also do technical visualizations for the technical department. We do tolerance analysis. We have reflection analysis we can with VRED. We also do light development, therefore Autodesk that's very important steps between the last VRED versions so that we can also visualize simulated data. And, of course, we do all that [INAUDIBLE] visualization that your call "surfacing process."

And one other very important point-- we can do HMI visualizations. So if you ever have driven a Porsche, or you have ever been in one, and you see at the center screen you always have car visualizations, in 2D and in 3D as well. And all of that kind of pictures and VR models are based on our VR model that we build up in our design studio. So it's one whole big process.

And with the latest features in VRED 2018 we were even able to put HTML5 data into our VRED model-- thanks, Pascal, so far-- so that we can do our development of HMI visualization during the design process. We worked very close together last year with Autodesk to get that into the software. So thanks for that. That really helps us a lot.

So this was all about visualization. Let's go to the next step. This-- of course, some very important thing is missing-- VR, one of the most interesting hypes over the last two years. But for us it's not just the hype or something that we play with. In the meanwhile it's a very important tool for us during our design development.

At the moment we use the HTC VIVE to do our VR. And, of course, we do VRED Professional for visualization. So, you see here some capturing of what we do at the moment. We have something like a mock-up where we can sit in and then we see with the HTC VIVE, for example, here. That's our concept car, the Mission E we presented two years ago. It can change colors and all that kind of stuff.

And that gives us a very good impression during the same process if our new design works. If you have a good feeling in the interior, how the car looks like compared to others. And the designers and the modelers-- they really like that kind of visualization.

But it's not only done with VRED professional. I wish I could have also mentioned Stingray, but we are not at the moment-- not at that point. But we'll see what will happen in the future. So at the moment-- we also look at, of course, the Unreal Engine of Unity and the CryEngine from Crytek to see if these--

[CELLPHONE RINGING]

Oh, sorry for that-- if these engines fit to our purposes. So here's the two main topics, why we are using VR. Of course, surface perception, the interaction with HMI, color perception, collaboration-- a very important topic. I think we will have a session later on where, I think, Lucas is talking about that. Am I right?

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

FERNANDO SAAL: Thank you. And, of course, you're using it for design experience, for color distribution, and for spatial impact-- one of the most important issues using the VR. So let's change it to AR. We are also doing this since one year. We're using the HoloLens from Microsoft. This is very, very interesting. You see here an example on a 1-to-3 model for some test cases we did together with another company that helped us programming this kind of content. So it's quite impressive what you really can do.

Here we have a 1-to-1 model of our Cayman. You see here the mesh for the tracking, and now you can, for example, put on the lights when you look through the HoloLens, or you can also show additional data. You see it here. It's like a little UI. You can put on the engine.

For example here the measurements you see. So that's a really nice tool. You look at the car, and you've got additional content for the car. And that could really help us a lot in the future when we have big board presentations where you have a lot of cars, and so you can show the board members additional content to that.

Any questions so far? Please feel free to ask. Oh, yes?

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] using VR in earlier stages of your design development? Or is it more, like, to evaluate what you guys [INAUDIBLE]?

FERNANDO SAAL: Could you-- I'm not sure what you mean?

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] using VR for your visualization.

FERNANDO SAAL: Yeah.

AUDIENCE: When you've done your design you're creating stages of the project. You have many applications of virtual reality for the creation of a design idea rather than for visualization of it?

FERNANDO SAAL: Well, we are using just our tools I mentioned before. So we don't do any extra effort to make these VR presentations. It's all done in VRED. Well, I mentioned we are also looking at the Unreal Engine and Unity. Of course, therefore, we have to make low-polygon models and all that kind of stuff. But at the moment we mostly use VRED. Let's say 90% of our VR presentations are done with VRED Professional and our VRED models.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

FERNANDO SAAL: No. That's not. Because that's not-- the resolution is not high enough and the designers don't feel very comfortable because you can't make any detailing on it. So it's just for reviews at the moment. Yeah. Right.

Yeah? Please.

AUDIENCE: You said you're doing HMI work. How accurate are you in-- are you actually using the reposition controls? Are you just flipping through menus and evaluating what [INAUDIBLE]? How accurate is that actual work you're doing?

FERNANDO SAAL: Well, of course we-- in the first step we look at it-- where do we have to place our displays? So what's the whole UX experience behind? Do I need a big display in the center console or do I need a small display with a big HUD in the front? So this is something we do in the beginning, and we do it in VR, of course. But we don't place it interactively. We have some scenarios which we do before, and then you can just click through and see, OK--

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

FERNANDO SAAL: Not in the design studio. Of course, our design engineers-- they do that with the technical department, but not with our tools. These tools we just use for reviews. Please.

AUDIENCE: Can you get more than one person [INAUDIBLE] VR presentation [INAUDIBLE]?

FERNANDO SAAL: In the future we will. Yes? Please.

AUDIENCE: You said most of your [INAUDIBLE] work is done with VRED. With those times when you do go in Unity or Unreal, how long does it take to process the model from VRED [INAUDIBLE]?

FERNANDO SAAL: We are looking at it at the moment. We have some companies that helps us at the moment to see what kind of effort we need to put our model from VRED to, for example, the Unreal Engine. But we don't have any numbers of how much hours it will take to convert that VRED file into Unreal. So, you have a lot of things that you have to keep in mind when you do that. And it's not so easy.

So that's the same, why we are not sure if game engines could be a solution. I think it would be better if VRED will get more, let's say, open GL features inside so that we don't have to use any game engines for that. But I think that we will get something in the future that helps us. Yes? Please.

AUDIENCE: The majority of the tools are being used for in-house, for your own staff, or are you exposing any of this technology to the customer on your website for their online [INAUDIBLE]?

FERNANDO SAAL: No. That's just for design development. So our marketing department-- they do their job that has, at the moment, nothing to do with it. That's bad because we could have a lot of synergies. But what we do is, we work very close together with our press department so when they do press images and press movies they are all based on our data set and also on our VRED model.

So, for example, the new Cayenne-- when we release the first movies of this car they were done with an agency which used our VRED model. We gave them just our VRED file. They just removed our shaders with theirs, put their video content and the back plates in, and then they could produce for a very low cost the press movies and pictures.

But the marketing stuff-- well, the department that is directly connected to the customer, they have their own ideas so far. But, yeah. We are still working on it to get also that fixed and save more money. Please.

AUDIENCE: Last one.

FERNANDO SAAL: Yeah.

AUDIENCE: So with all this disruptive technology that's changing the way we see things, how do you envision this affecting Porsche's design studio in the next few years in terms of what kind of new designers will you be looking for [INAUDIBLE]?

FERNANDO SAAL: Well, a lot of things are changing at the moment, and we'll be changed in the next months and years. And it's not so easy to answer your question. But what already happens is that we get more ideas come to the board because with that technology's just cheaper to produce them. And the board gets a better impression what kind of car we should build over the next years. And that's something that's very useful for us and for the designers as well.

They just can do more. Because in the past they were-- well, I just said, like a few ideas and we can do just 1-to-1 model, and this will be your model. And now we can do-- well, if you have five ideas, five designs-- well, let's put that into VR so that the board can have a look at it and then it can choose, OK, let's make model one and three, and we go in this direction. So for the designer it really gets better.

Let's have a look at the time. Oh. And, like our cars, I'm really, really fast.

[LAUGHTER]

So at Porsche, in the design studio, these are our main topics while developing our car designs. And I said something about that fuzzy cloud here in the back. At the end that all fits together.

[INTENSE MUSIC PLAYING]

All content what you have seen so far during the whole presentation-- if it's pictures and movies, of course-- are done completely in VRED. So I'm finished with my presentations. Any more questions? We will have plenty of time. [LAUGHS]

[APPLAUSE]

Yes, please?

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] development. Do you use any other products? Or, what's your link in the manufacturing environment?

FERNANDO SAAL: Well, the first step, of course, we use Alias data and then we go to other product for surfacing, for building up the surfacing process. It's mostly my sim surf. There they build up the class A surfaces at the moment for tools and for manufacturing.

AUDIENCE: So as it flows through the process and management makes changes, what's your [INAUDIBLE]? How do you get [INAUDIBLE]? Do you just go back to Alias and start there and then [INAUDIBLE].

FERNANDO SAAL: No. The loops were done then and ISAM. But the data goes back into our VRED model.

AUDIENCE: So now you [INAUDIBLE]

FERNANDO SAAL: Right. And we make these kind of iterations. Also [INAUDIBLE] if it's a more kind of technical stuff. Yeah.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] grouping, clustering, [INAUDIBLE] issues that aren't always resolved. Do you run into a lot of problems with [INAUDIBLE]?

FERNANDO SAAL: OK. Our data-- well, it took us a long way. But at the moment I can say that we don't have any problems anymore concerning flip normals or wrong normals or all that kind of stuff. Because our Alias modelers-- they already know how we like to get the data from them. And when we get data from [INAUDIBLE] or Isimsurf they're always clear. [INAUDIBLE]

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] so you can track all the [INAUDIBLE]

FERNANDO SAAL: Not yet. Not yet. Yes, please?

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

FERNANDO SAAL: Well, it depends on the operators. So we have operators that feel very comfortable with Modo because they come from the game industry and they used that kind of software before. For them it's just easier and faster to build soft parts like the seats in Modo. But they can also model in Maya. We do complex animations, for example, in Maya. Or our stitching tool is also based in Maya. So that's why we use Maya as well, but not for modeling in that case especially.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

FERNANDO SAAL: Sorry?

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

FERNANDO SAAL: Well, in the interior for seats. Of course, in the exterior we use Modo for low-poly models. So, for example, for our 3D models we have in our center screen in the car-- in the real car. You have some animations where you need a low-poly model because the hardware that's inside the car isn't that strong, and therefore they build the low-poly model's exterior and interior in Modo. Yes, please?

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

FERNANDO SAAL: OK. In our team at the moment, we have 12 to 14 people. But that's just the team concerning visualization. They were divided into three groups. One group is responsible for the classic design visualization and all the board presentations and all that you have to do in line when you've just developed a car.

The second group is responsible for emerging technologies. So these are the guys using the VR glasses and the AR glasses. And the third group is responsible for movies and pictures and the coordination with the external agencies. So at least we have, for every car line, one person who's doing the visualization the whole process long-- so, four years. Right.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

FERNANDO SAAL: Sorry? Again?

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

FERNANDO SAAL: Yeah. Great. Great. We really like it. I think the biggest problem is still, of course, the field of view because it's very small. But when you use it on a 1-to-3 model it works really good.

And we had also some problems with the tracking-- the perfect tracking. But therefore we had some solutions to get that fixed. So it's a mixture of Microsoft technology in the HoloLens, and the software Euphoria that we use for the tracking. And-- yeah. I'm not sure if you saw it, but we have the number plates wear our device for the tracking. So once the HoloLens is on the number plate they can perfectly match the model on it, and then you can walk around and it fits. But it's still a lot of work that we have to do so. It's no one-click solution.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

FERNANDO SAAL: That's really hard to say. I think the Cayman model you saw has a board 150,000 polygons.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

FERNANDO SAAL: Yeah. Right. Right. That's what we did. With that kind of model it works really good. The thing is, the content you really want to see inside the HoloLens. Doesn't have to be the car itself. So it just can be additional content, additional information. And we see there are the better use cases than just visualizing a complete new car with the HoloLens, because you can do it but it will look like crap at the moment. So that doesn't help you. Yeah?

AUDIENCE: What are some of the biggest challenges in the design process [INAUDIBLE]

FERNANDO SAAL: We really want to get better concerning VR, of course. So therefore we need some more features in VRED concerning open GL visualization, because I think there we can do a really big step. This would be nice. And for VR, well, it would be nice if we have some kind of a poly reduction tool in VRED as well-- one that really works. [CHUCKLES]

This are, I think, the biggest challenge for using VR and AR. And why do I say that? Because I think VR and AR will be one of the most important tools designing cars in the future. Yeah?

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

FERNANDO SAAL: Not so far. No.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

FERNANDO SAAL: You mean that black model, when the guy had the HTC on his head? Yeah. I think that was already complex model we have. Mostly we just have a seat, like a seat you're sitting on. In the very early step when you're doing car design that is enough. Right. Because we don't do any analysis on the interior because we have another department that does that job. Yes? Please.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

FERNANDO SAAL: Well, it really is hands-on. It can-- let's say we have a meeting with our chief exterior designer and with one of his guys and with us looking at the latest data of, let's say, the fender of the 911. He will look at it in VRED on the power wall and say, OK, it looks nice, but could we make or change it here and there? And then we got back in two days, four days, and we have a look at it again. But there is no big process behind, because we all sit together. So we just have one design department at Porsche, and it's sitting in the Research and Development Center. And all the people that are responsible for developing a car-- they're all sitting on the same campus. And we also are not that big, so we have like 150 people at the moment in our design department-- so including designers, engineers, clay modelers, digital modelers, our visualization team. And we work together all the day. So it's very, let's say-- it's not a complex way of working together. Yes, please.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] So for us it's a big great benefit to use the [INAUDIBLE]

FERNANDO SAAL: Yeah. Right. So, we don't use it just at the end. There were just the pictures from cars right at the end because I can't show you the earlier stages. Of course we use it at the very beginning already. When we do first proportion models, very rough stuff, of course we use our VR glasses to have a first look at it.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

FERNANDO SAAL: Yes. But we already did some scripting in Python to get it quickly into VRED and automatically into the VR glasses. So therefore we did some scripting to make that quick and easy and accessible for Alias modelers so that they don't have to ask us, as visualization specialists, to do that. Yes, please.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

FERNANDO SAAL: Right. They are mostly importing scripts. So we did that with Python, but we also did something that when you put data into a specific folder VRED will automatically open, converting these kind of files. And then you can watch it in your glasses already shaded. Yes?

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] libraries [INAUDIBLE] Alias and VRED have noticed a discrepancy in the [INAUDIBLE]

FERNANDO SAAL: Yeah. We are still working on it. There are some features, but the problem we had in the past was that when we compare-- or when we give our VRED library to our Alias designers and they take these kind of shaders in Alias, well, it doesn't look good in Alias. So I'm not sure if this is already fixed or not, but we are still looking on it to get that fixed. Because this would save a lot of time for us.

AUDIENCE: I was wondering, if you're scripting, if you fixed it?

FERNANDO SAAL: No, not yet. Not yet. So we didn't get the time to fix that. But I hope Autodesk will do that for us. [LAUGHING] Great. Yes, please.

AUDIENCE: You mentioned that you were using some lighting [INAUDIBLE] in terms of [INAUDIBLE]

FERNANDO SAAL: We work very close together with our light developers. We have in our design studio, of course, designers that just do headlamps, tail lamps, and all that kind of stuff. And these people-- they have two engineers that are especially on this kind of topic. And they use, of course, other programs for light simulation, and they help us analyzing If VRED can also do that kind of visualization. Well, we already did that, and it works quite good. We still have some things to do together with Autodesk to get some problems fixed.

But it's not so easy. You're right. You need a visualization specialist that knows VRED very well. You need, at the moment, allied engineer that helps you concerning the data you import to VRED. And, of course, the designer who does the design of this kind of headlamps, for example. Because he knows how the light should go out of that headlamp, or what we have to change that it looks better.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

FERNANDO SAAL: That shouldn't be the problem. Yeah. We work very close together with the suppliers, so I can't say that we had any problems so far getting data from them.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

FERNANDO SAAL: You're welcome.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

FERNANDO SAAL: Not so far we're. Just faking it. For mood lighting-- well, we are faking it.

[LAUGHTER]

But at the end it looks like in the real car, so we don't have to do any very complex simulation for that. It's still also a lot of Photoshop on the pictures as well. Well-- sorry. One question? Yeah.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] How do you get around that performance [INAUDIBLE]

FERNANDO SAAL: Right. So, I'm not sure if you could read it from the back. For our visualization team we have always the latest hardware. We use two P6000 from Nvidia that every operator has from us for visualizing data and doing the VR kind of stuff. While the alias guys-- they don't have that big machines. I would say. They have, like, a P5000 or 4000. And, of course, they do not have it in SLI performance. That's just what our team has for the visualization. But that never is a problem so far, getting this kind of hardware. Because we are also working very close with Nvidia, and when they release a new graphic card we are always able to get one and to test it. Yes?

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

FERNANDO SAAL: I think at the moment we have HP workstations. Yeah. Good. Then, thank you.

[APPLAUSE]