Abstract
One of the most important steps in the body design process consists in choosing the style of the new car. This can be achieved by presenting different new concept vehicles to the customers during some “clinical tests”. The results are extremely useful if they are correct interpreted and if the new car concepts already take into account the technical and human constraints. This is the reason for making a simple and fast ergonomic evaluation of the cockpit for each alternative of a new body design proposed by the stylist. Starting from the wide diversity of human dimensions we propose a new algorithm for the research of the cockpit architecture using a 2D virtual anthropometrical model with variable dimensions. The concept is transposed in a new CAD software for the cockpit architecture research. The paper presents the CAD algorithm for the cockpit architecture research and the corresponding software automation tool developed using the AutoLISP language, which runs under the AutoCAD system. It is also presented an original concept car for urban traffic with an unconventional driving position on which it can be made the cockpit evaluation with the proposed CAD tool.
Keywords: car styling, cockpit evaluation, CAD, software, urban car concept