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How will users trust your results, particularly in safety critical applications? What are the main limitations of your approach? How do you ensure that the pa

by atroyn 11y ago

How will users trust your results, particularly in safety critical applications? What are the main limitations of your approach? How do you ensure that the parts you generate can actually be fabricated? How do you plan to find your customers?

chroem- 11y ago
Good questions! We use standard and well proven simulation techniques that have existed since the first half of the 20th century. We are however also verifying mesh convergence on each compute job, as well as verifying the output of the solver. Topology optimization is inherently very computationally intensive by nature, though thanks to advances in computing that's becoming less of an issue. A big component of topology optimization is the application of solution constraints. Users simply choose their manufacturing process, and then the software will mark all solutions that can't be manufactured by that process as invalid. So for example, when optimizing an injection molded part with a 2-piece mold, the optimizer will throw out any solutions which feature overhangs or internal cavities. We're planning on riding the current buzz surrounding AI and automation in general. We plan to launch a social media campaign highlighting the effectiveness of topology optimization by comparing the performance of parts designed by our software versus those designed by a human competitor. Once we gain our initial userbase, growth should be straightforward once our business partners prove the advantage of using our software in industry.
- atroyn 11y ago
  How big is your team and what are their backgrounds? Do you have a specific industry/customer you'll target first? Are they already using engineering services firms for this work, and can you do it cheaper/faster? Are they really on social media? I would have thought that these people would be more likely found on a trade-show floor. This sounds like a pretty sales-heavy market, how will you get past the relationships a lot of incumbents will have built up over time? Or is your plan to go after new entrants / give access to firms who want it but can't get it yet? How do you prove your part is better than the human designed one, what's the key metric for 'better' for your customers ? ======================================================= For the record, I think this is a really cool idea and probably the future of a lot of the downstream end of mechanical/process engineering, but execution is going to be everything. I'm working with a lot of optimization right now in computer vision applications, and we're seeing the compute restrictions come down pretty quickly around this stuff too. It would be nice to have a general optimization engine somewhere I could just dump my problem into though.
  - chroem- 11y ago
    Good questions and thanks for the feedback! We're currently focused on the development of the software and getting a shippable product. Our target demographic is small and medium sized engineering firms, who then go on to use our software assist in the design of products for their customers. The social media campaign is simply a fast, cheap means of establishing an initial presence despite being currently unknown. It will also allow us to reach smaller, more agile players quite well. But yes, our goal is simply to allow widespread adoption of this technology rather than uproot the current solutions being used in limited amounts by very large firms. Essentially, we aim to do for topology optimization what Microsoft did for operating systems. "Better" depends on the problem at hand, though typical measures of performance are cheaper, lighter, stronger, etc. You're right that this is certainly a computationally expensive field, however our value proposition to potential customers makes up for that. Our business partners will have a clear market advantage, being able to produce higher performing designs while having greater engineer productivity than their competitors.
    - atroyn 11y ago
      Suppose that for whatever reasons, automating mechanical design doesn't stick with your customers. What would you do then?
      - chroem- 11y ago
        Good question. Although that would quite frankly be pretty surprising, given the immense value we offer our customers, the next step would be to spin off the technology we've developed to an existing topology optimization software vendor. We're breaking new ground with this software, and some of our developments would undoubtedly be highly valuable to established companies in this area.

by atroyn 11y ago

chroem- 11y ago

Good questions! We use standard and well proven simulation techniques that have existed since the first half of the 20th century. We are however also verifying mesh convergence on each compute job, as well as verifying the output of the solver. Topology optimization is inherently very computationally intensive by nature, though thanks to advances in computing that's becoming less of an issue. A big component of topology optimization is the application of solution constraints. Users simply choose their manufacturing process, and then the software will mark all solutions that can't be manufactured by that process as invalid. So for example, when optimizing an injection molded part with a 2-piece mold, the optimizer will throw out any solutions which feature overhangs or internal cavities. We're planning on riding the current buzz surrounding AI and automation in general. We plan to launch a social media campaign highlighting the effectiveness of topology optimization by comparing the performance of parts designed by our software versus those designed by a human competitor. Once we gain our initial userbase, growth should be straightforward once our business partners prove the advantage of using our software in industry.

atroyn 11y ago
How big is your team and what are their backgrounds? Do you have a specific industry/customer you'll target first? Are they already using engineering services firms for this work, and can you do it cheaper/faster? Are they really on social media? I would have thought that these people would be more likely found on a trade-show floor. This sounds like a pretty sales-heavy market, how will you get past the relationships a lot of incumbents will have built up over time? Or is your plan to go after new entrants / give access to firms who want it but can't get it yet? How do you prove your part is better than the human designed one, what's the key metric for 'better' for your customers ? ======================================================= For the record, I think this is a really cool idea and probably the future of a lot of the downstream end of mechanical/process engineering, but execution is going to be everything. I'm working with a lot of optimization right now in computer vision applications, and we're seeing the compute restrictions come down pretty quickly around this stuff too. It would be nice to have a general optimization engine somewhere I could just dump my problem into though.
- chroem- 11y ago
  Good questions and thanks for the feedback! We're currently focused on the development of the software and getting a shippable product. Our target demographic is small and medium sized engineering firms, who then go on to use our software assist in the design of products for their customers. The social media campaign is simply a fast, cheap means of establishing an initial presence despite being currently unknown. It will also allow us to reach smaller, more agile players quite well. But yes, our goal is simply to allow widespread adoption of this technology rather than uproot the current solutions being used in limited amounts by very large firms. Essentially, we aim to do for topology optimization what Microsoft did for operating systems. "Better" depends on the problem at hand, though typical measures of performance are cheaper, lighter, stronger, etc. You're right that this is certainly a computationally expensive field, however our value proposition to potential customers makes up for that. Our business partners will have a clear market advantage, being able to produce higher performing designs while having greater engineer productivity than their competitors.
  - atroyn 11y ago
    Suppose that for whatever reasons, automating mechanical design doesn't stick with your customers. What would you do then?
    - chroem- 11y ago
      Good question. Although that would quite frankly be pretty surprising, given the immense value we offer our customers, the next step would be to spin off the technology we've developed to an existing topology optimization software vendor. We're breaking new ground with this software, and some of our developments would undoubtedly be highly valuable to established companies in this area.