Use Case: Impact Design Europe

Developing a modern 3D user interface for engineering software requires expertise in computer graphics, software engineering, and vehicle design. Applications used to build computational models of vehicle structures must deliver high-performance rendering while providing engineers with intuitive tools for creating, modifying, and analyzing complex models. As engineering projects become increasingly sophisticated, the quality of the graphical interface is just as important as the computational capabilities behind it.

At Impact Design Europe, we recently modernized our flagship application, Visual Crash Studio X, with the goal of creating a faster, more intuitive engineering environment. Visual Crash Studio has been used in the automotive industry for many years as a design environment supporting vehicle body development. It enables engineers to build, modify, and analyze computational vehicle models used during crashworthiness development, helping engineering teams evaluate structural concepts at the early stages of vehicle design.

As operating systems, graphics hardware, and user expectations evolved, it became clear that our application required more than a visual refresh. We needed a modern 3D interface capable of handling increasingly complex engineering workflows while remaining responsive and easy to use.

A typical vehicle model contains thousands of structural components, each requiring its own graphical representation together with engineering information. Beyond efficient rendering, the interface must support engineers throughout the modelling process with intuitive editing tools, contextual information, and visualization features that simplify model creation and comparison of alternative design concepts.

During our search for suitable technology, we discovered the AB4D product family. After evaluating the available options, we selected Ab3d.PowerToys together with Ab3d.DXEngine. This combination provided everything we were looking for: high-performance DirectX rendering, seamless WPF integration, flexible scene management, and a mature framework for developing advanced engineering visualizations.

One of the greatest advantages of the AB4D ecosystem was the significant reduction in development effort. Rather than investing time in building rendering infrastructure from scratch, our team could focus on implementing engineering functionality that directly benefits our users. Comprehensive documentation and extensive collection of implementation examples accelerated development considerably, allowing even a relatively small team to build sophisticated visualization features in a short time.

Today, Visual Crash Studio X offers engineers a modern and responsive 3D workspace where computational models can be created, modified, and analyzed efficiently. Interactive selection tools, engineering overlays, custom visualization techniques, and improved navigation have transformed the user experience, allowing engineers to concentrate on vehicle development instead of software operation.

This project also demonstrated that developing innovative engineering software does not necessarily require a large organization. With the right technology stack and well-designed libraries, a small development team can deliver highly specialized applications that compete with much larger commercial solutions. Ab3d.PowerToys and Ab3d.DXEngine enabled us to focus our resources on engineering innovation rather than graphics infrastructure.

Finally, we would like to thank the AB4D company's CEO, for the outstanding technical support provided throughout the project. Their responsiveness, technical expertise, and genuine commitment to solving implementation challenges significantly accelerated our development and contributed to the successful delivery of Visual Crash Studio X.

For Impact Design Europe, the modernization of Visual Crash Studio X represents far more than a new user interface. It demonstrates how choosing the right technology partner can transform an established engineering application into a modern platform that meets today's industrial requirements. Our experience has shown that Ab3d.PowerToys and Ab3d.DXEngine are powerful, reliable, and developer-friendly technologies for building professional engineering applications. They have become an essential part of the next generation of Visual Crash Studio X, helping us deliver a faster, more intuitive, and more capable environment for vehicle body engineering.

 

Marek Krzywoblocki, PhD, Impact Design Europe