The art of bridge-building

Within Audi, there is a vehicle-structure geometry team that constitutes the decisive "bridge" between the design and construction areas. It is known as the "Strake" team, using a term that originally came from boat-building. A hull - or the panels of a car's body - is correctly "straked" when the surface is absolutely smooth and free from hollows. This ensures optimum flow (in air or water as the case may be) and satisfies the highest visual standards too. The "Strake" engineers have, in other words, to define the precise geometry of the car's exterior and interior surfaces.

In the past, Audi normally produced a clay model of the final body shape at the end of the design phase. This model was used to supply geometrical data for the subsequent technical development stages. The data sets were not transferred to the construction departments until every surface of the design model had been finalised. However, there were often situations in which the designer's or the structural engineer's wishes could not be interpreted effectively at the first attempt. AUDI AG has therefore adopted an alternative method, in which development work commences simultaneously in the Design, "Strake" and Construction areas. This avoids the unnecessary expense and loss of time involved if development work is duplicated.

This is a genuinely pioneering step forward: even when the early design models are still being produced in clay, initial data can be generated in the "strake" team's computers. The clay model is scanned by stereo photogrammetric methods, resulting initially in a virtual relief drawing, which includes the unavoidable shortcomings of the hand modelling process. The "concept strake" is then produced in a series of stages. The team works closely with the designers and construction engineers until the computer has created a digital replica of the future car with a perfect "Class A" surface. Thanks to this intensive process, the links between the geometrical team, the designers and the construction planners are so close that many tasks can be performed in parallel. The decisions are taken and responsibility assumed wherever specific questions arise.

The computer software used for the "strake" process, on the development of which Audi exerted considerable influence, is called "ICEM Surf".

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