Styling / Class-A Surfacing

Class-A surfacing ensures perfect surfaces in the area of product design and industrial design, but especially in complex vehicle construction.

Regarding the car manufacturing process, for example, information from the departments of design, ergonomics, aerodynamics and construction is bundled in the surfacing department and processed via the CAD system.

Strak bedeutet Aufbau und Optimierung von Oberflächen in Form der Erstellung von im Krümmungsverlauf stetigen Flächen für alle kundensichtbaren Teile im Interieur und Exterieur eines Fahrzeugs, sowie die Sicherstellung der Herstellbarkeit. Fundiertes Wissen im Bereich moderner Herstellungsverfahren ist ebenso wichtig, wie die Kenntnis technischer Vorschriften und formästhetischer Anforderungen an die Qualität der Oberflächen der Fahrzeuge von morgen. Class-A surfacing describes the design and optimization of surfaces including constant curvature for all customer-visible parts in the interior and exterior of a vehicle, as well as ensuring manufacturability. Well-founded knowledge in modern manufacturing processes is just as important as the knowledge of technical regulations and form-aesthetic requirements for the quality of the surfaces of tomorrow's vehicles.

We offer the creation of your 3D surface data

Numerous reference projects testify to the good quality of our work. We can also provide you with competent support in the area of gray zone or secondary surfacing.

Our specialists use the following software solutions:
ICEM Surf, Alias Surface, Rhino with V-ray, V-Red and Grasshopper – at our premises or at your site.

Exterior surfacing combines the aesthetic vision of the design department with the technical specifications of the construction department. As the entirety of visible class-A surfaces, the exterior of a car is composed of convex and concave shaped planes, radii, beads and joints. All transitions between different radii and surfaces have to be built smoothly and harmonically to meet the desired aesthetic appearance.

Quality can be seen in detail. Accurate line management, precisely flowing transitions between components and clean junctions foster the impression of a sophisticated exterior design. The customers perceive the shape and its quality through the reflections, and in the end a good impression could convince a customer to purchase the car.

We develop class-A surfaces considering different specifications and material requirements, such as “sheet molding compounds” for instance. The compliance with minimum radii (required by ECE R26), legal regulations regarding pedestrian ­safety or crash impact requirements are meticulously upheld by our team of specialists.

The Interior of a car is a complex agglomeration of different assemblies. Dashboard, seats, center console, coverings, headliner and flooring should be appealing and comfortable, both for the driver and his passengers. The driver's station with the instrument panel (cockpit) and all controls must be intuitive to operate. Our interior surfacing specialists provide the perfect finishing touches to class-A surfaces and ensure the manufacturability of the components.

Ergonomics and appearance are two of the key concepts that make up a good vehicle interior.

When the interior of the vehicle is experienced for the first time, it is an emotionalizing and decisive moment. The quality of the interior is once again underlined via the overall visual impression and the feel of the Class-A surfaces.

The aim is to harmoniously combine all design specifications with the implementation of various functionalities in the vehicle interior.

Headlights, daytime running lights, taillights, fog lights and all turn indicators are also part of the exterior. Class-A surfacing is also an essential processing step for lights because visibility takes on a central role in between the demands of safety, styling and comfort, which is a very complex task. A wide variety of factors must be considered in the development of vehicle luminaires.

On the technical side, luminance, beam path, color temperature and heat generation are just as important as flow behavior, service life, energy efficiency or temperature behavior, to name just a few influencing variables. The contemporary technology of LED light sources and even more the future lighting technologies such as matrix LED or laser headlights offer highly interesting application possibilities as well as a greatly expanded vocabulary for the design of luminaire graphics.

The appearance of headlights and taillights in particular is of great importance, because it already emotionalizes the vehicle when viewed from the outside, whether unlit, lit, partially lit or illuminated.

Structures, structural metamorphoses, repeats, honeycombs, grids – this is the domain of parametric design. The structures are generated algorithmically and can be edited at any time via parameters. The number, size or spacing of structural elements or internal structures can be designed to be constant, linear or dynamically variable.
In addition, those geometrics can be placed on three-dimensional objects. Parametric design creates decisive advantages in this way:

Surfacing layout gains flexibility and efficiency: different variants of a required structure can be developed depending on the surrounding geometry. In addition, the parametric associative design allows the part design also in reverse order, in which the parametric design can influence the parent part.

In both cases, different design possibilities can be run through in the strak model in the shortest possible time. This creates a perfect basis for discussion between design and construction. Any problems that may arise later in the toolmaking process can thus already be represented and identified during the design phase by means of a so called "PaKo model".