Skip to content
Artwork for CDFAM Computational Design Symposium
CDFAM Computational Design Symposium · Yesterday · 22 min

Engineering/Manufacturing Processes With Implicit Modeling

CDFAM Computational Design Symposium — Tokyo 2026 George Allen · nTop By now, implicit modeling technology and its benefits are well understood. In situations where a part is highly complex or its design process is highly iterative, implicit modeling using signed distance fields is uniquely able to deliver the reliability, performance, and scalability that are required for success. However, the novelty of implicit modeling is also a source of problems. Current engineering/manufacturing processes are often heavily dependent on legacy software tools that cannot consume implicit models — they require meshes or boundary representations, instead. So how do we address this problem? There are a few options — we can either convert implicit models to the forms needed by legacy tools, replace the legacy tools with new ones that consume implicit models directly, or change the data flow in the overall process. The talk examines these issues, reports progress and the current status, and suggests some ways forward. Links Talk page with full transcript Watch the talk on YouTube Search this talk's transcript Cite this talk This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.designforam.com

0:00-22:41

transcript

No transcript — this publisher did not publish one.

show notes

CDFAM Computational Design Symposium — Tokyo 2026

George Allen · nTop

By now, implicit modeling technology and its benefits are well understood. In situations where a part is highly complex or its design process is highly iterative, implicit modeling using signed distance fields is uniquely able to deliver the reliability, performance, and scalability that are required for success. However, the novelty of implicit modeling is also a source of problems. Current engineering/manufacturing processes are often heavily dependent on legacy software tools that cannot consume implicit models — they require meshes or boundary representations, instead. So how do we address this problem? There are a few options — we can either convert implicit models to the forms needed by legacy tools, replace the legacy tools with new ones that consume implicit models directly, or change the data flow in the overall process. The talk examines these issues, reports progress and the current status, and suggests some ways forward.

Links

Talk page with full transcript

Watch the talk on YouTube

Search this talk's transcript

Cite this talk



This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.designforam.com
links6