Computer-aided design for car designers

In the lastdecade, CAD tools are more and more widely used in most advanced companies, particulary in the stage of computerization of the shape that has been selected for development. The corresponding period is precisely in between the design and the development process. Sometimes, CAD tools are used before this selection in order to produce a realistic rendering in an environment with colours, lights, backgrounds. This provides the possibility of comparing many variants of a concept before selecting one. Today, new types of CAD tools tend to occur earlier in the design process. Among those we can find "Computer Aided Styling tools". They are more or less in a research stage at the present time. To optimize this kind of tools, it is necessary to have a better understanding of the needs of the stylists/designers in their activity, bearing in mind that styling is an intuitive process. To fit these tools to the actual trend of reducing the process time, it is also important to consider the communication needs with other operators in the design process like consumers and engineers. This means at first a better knowing of the visual and verbal language.