Start with PTC Creo.
Stop at nothing.
Ideas are your product team's most valuable asset. Unleashing those ideas into real products that set your company apart is where PTC Creo comes in. As the world's most scalable and easy-to-use suite of design software, PTC Creo maximizes every aspect of the design process. From creativity to productivity, teamwork to efficiency.
Paul McCartney, Keith Richards, and Jimi Hendrix motivated
12-year-old Aristides Poort to learn how to play guitar. But rather than pursue
the life of a rock star, he grew up and went on to study civil engineering at
the Technical University of Delft, in the Netherlands.
"It was a very inspiring environment where we worked on
futuristic projects to improve society," says Poort. But that doesn't mean
he forgot his early musical heroes. Rather, after graduation he used his
engineering skills to envision and build the ideal guitar.
LEARN HOW PTC CREO CAN IMPROVE YOUR CONCEPT DESIGN PROCESS.
The Dream
Poort's dream guitar would have perfect tone and longer
sustain. It would be electric, but it would resonate like a fine violin.
You might think those qualities have to be forced with
electronic circuitry. But Poort says a truly great instrument gives off a warm
and sweet-sounding hum unplugged, with very little buzzing through the body
when you strike the strings.
The Aristides OIO guitar
Teamwork
Poort turned to the Technical University, his alma mater, to
work on his visionary instrument.
"We looked at the cell structure of top-quality wood
that all fine guitars and other stringed instruments are made from," he
says. "The wood influences the sound, defines how the guitar resonates,
and determines how the sustain works. But wood resonates in just two
dimensions, due to its rigid fiber structure. There is nothing you can change
about that."
So Poort's team rethought the material. In the end, they
created a new fiberless material they called Arium.
"Arium has no constraining fibers and so it can
resonate anywhere it wants to," says Poort. The result is a material with
sonic characteristics like those typically found in an 18th century
Stradivarius.
Creativity
Even with Arium, Poort felt much more innovation was needed.
He enlisted Nout van Heumen to turn his idea into a real product, with PTC
Creo.
"The goal was to create a guitar with very clean lines
and a minimum of mechanical clunky-ness," says Poort. "We needed to
carefully balance aesthetics, comfort, and acoustics."
They enhanced the product by manufacturing the body and neck
in one piece, ensuring the guitar vibrates with maximum intensity and allows
each note or chord to fade away very slowly and continuously – a leisurely sustain.
C2 Curvature continuity between body and neck
Ergonomically, the team optimized the design for maximum
playing enjoyment, from the smooth neck transition around the upper fret board
to the matte surface of the body and neck, which keeps sweating hands from
losing their grip.
"I created all the main parts of the guitar, even
strings and tuners, in PTC Creo," says van Heumen. "By using the
parametric modeling approach, I easily created a model with which I could
change the scale and neck angle of the guitar and the whole design would
correctly update."
Even the guitar's neck profile is created as a parametric
surface, which can change together with the scale and width of the neck.
"This helps us reduce the number of prototypes, increase the concept designs
we can explore, and even speed up designs of future models," says van
Heumen.
The most striking part of the guitar is the heel. Most
guitar necks are bolted to the body. But the Aristides combines the two in one
piece. "The transition is very smooth," says van Heumen. "In
fact, it's not even visible."
PTC Creo surfacing and curvature ensure the transition of
the surfaces is continuous, supporting C2 curvature continuity where the
curvature is continuous, but allowing the sharp change in slope needed between
body and neck.
Productivity
"With the fully detailed and parametric model of the
guitar, we quickly created a physical prototype, and then tested it with a few
guitarists for ergonomics and playability. With their feedback, I changed the
scale and neck angle to optimize the design" says van Heumen. "Those
changes were very quick using PTC Creo."
One-piece integrally molded Arium body and neck
Van Heumen also used PTC Creo to design the aluminum molds
and tools for manufacturing the guitar. "The guitar's body, neck, and
headstock are a single piece. Because it uses a cast manufacturing process, it
needs to have a continuous hidden parting line and draft that's ergonomic and
attractive," he says.
The Result
The Aristides OIO guitar was born, featuring a one-piece
integrally molded Arium body and neck, a top-grade ebony fret-board with pearl
inlay, and a thin-layer aluminum silver or matte black finish.
Since its launch, the Aristides OIO has received outstanding
reviews and established loyal fans in North America, Japan, and Europe,
including Adrian Vandenberg, who played with David Coverdale and Whitesnake on
Whitesnake's #1 hit "Here I Go Again." Vandenberg says playing an
Aristides is "like hitting a key on a Steinway grand piano!"
Check out Aristides Instruments at
http://www.aristidesinstruments.com, listen to the Aristides OIO, and see how
great products come to life with PTC Creo.
