SITUATION

This client is a leader in the development and research of foam safety components and has pioneered innovations that have set the industry standard in professional racing. Their successes are driven by their understanding of the importance of properly designed and functioning padding inside the car – padding that helps protect drivers from the tremendous forces applied during a crash.

Top drivers from around the world come to this company for custom-fit seats that perfectly match the shape of their bodies. To manufacture smooth seating using the company’s preferred and proven materials, a digital model of the physical proportions of one’s unique, organic shape must first be created.

SOLUTION

The company contacted us for guidance with their manufacturing challenges. Under tight time-constraints, they shipped a seat model to our company to have its surface measurements captured with a high resolution 3D laser scanner. The client needed the finished model to be both accurate and smooth, requiring us to clean and optimize the data while preserving the high detail areas around the edges.

Our engineers used the optimized scan data to fit CAD data to the freeform surfaces which accurately captured the shape and contours of the seat – essentially the negative of the subject’s body. The final step was optimizing the organic, yet fully mathematical, model for manufacturing to reduce the client’s machine time.

RESULTS

Our services yielded an ideal solution for the client to obtain and create digital 3D data of custom-molded seats. The CAD data provides the client the ability to quickly manufacture new and/or replacement seats. Due to the demands of the racing industry, our company often receives, scans, models and ships back what is the only copy of a particular seat with a typical turnaround time of 1-2 days.

This client continues to work with our engineers on new designs and have completed dozens of projects together creating seats and headrests that improve the comfort and safety of drivers in NASCAR®, NHRA®, Grand Am Daytona Prototype and Ferrari Challenge series race teams.

For more information on this client, vist www.rollbarpadding.com.