Sep 16 2013
Design Parametrics, Incorporated, Kinetic River Corporation, and Plan Energy Ltd. announced a partnership to develop and market a set of software tools and related services for the design of flow cytometers and other complex optical biomedical systems.
The software and service offering is called BeamWise™ and is available from Design Parametrics and Kinetic River for evaluation. With BeamWise, a researcher or instrument developer can intuitively and concisely define an optical system; the software automatically generates 2D functional drawings, full 3D CAD models, and a parts list for implementation using real optomechanical components.
BeamWise builds on Design Parametrics’ two decades of experience in developing model-based design automation and configuration solutions for products and systems as diversified as electrical systems, capital equipment, building structures, and process plants. Kinetic River, with more than 15 years of optical system design experience, offers design services enhanced by the BeamWise technology. Plan Energy, with 9 years of Design++ model development experience, offers customization and enhancement services for BeamWise-based system models.
Tapio Karras, CEO of Design Parametrics, commented on the collaboration with Kinetic River: “Design Parametrics has always been successful by working with industry experts who have deep domain knowledge. It’s been a pleasure to collaborate with Giacomo Vacca, Ph.D. on the development of BeamWise. He combines a strong understanding of theoretical principles with the practical insights that come from his extensive hands-on experience in designing flow cytometers. He has been of invaluable assistance in offering a practitioner’s perspective on the design process as well as specific guidance on how to translate conceptual designs into functional models.”
Karras added, “Services from Kinetic River and Plan Energy using Design Parametrics’ Design++ knowledge-based engineering platform will allow biomedical instrumentation companies to simplify and automate the design of optical systems. Kinetic River and Plan Energy enable both researchers and engineers to jumpstart their development process.”
“With Design Parametrics’ Design++ based BeamWise package, design and engineering tasks that typically take experienced teams days to weeks to complete can now be handled in a matter of minutes. With this kind of dramatic efficiency improvement, I believe that BeamWise will become a standard platform for high-level exploration of design options, as well as for the generation of manufacturing documentation and commercialization specifications,” said Giacomo Vacca, Ph.D., founder and President of Kinetic River.
Hannu Lehtimaki, a seasoned Design++ application developer and principal of Plan Energy, observed, “While there is always a role for tinkering and trial-and-error methods in the design of innovative instrumentation, we have seen that development effort can be substantially reduced by using software models, as we have done successfully in several industries. The time needed for the release to production of an optical design can be shortened considerably using the Design++ platform and the BeamWise tools.”
Source: http://www.dp.com/