Introduction

There are times during the development and evolution of products where you want to explore  “what-if scenarios”: a look at possible solutions isolated from the mainstream development effort where you can explore possible changes to a product. 

Starting from  25xGA, the 3D Product Architect (PAU) role has been enhanced to create a structure called a Design Experience, that can answer the ‘what-if-scenarios’. 

Objective
The overall objective of this new  solution is to:

• Define a scene to capture and display together multi context and Work In Progress components
• Isolate the IP from the Engineering Definition of the product and delivery

The ability to isolate the IP, as well as the complete delivery, are already addressed in the Branching  tools available on the 3DEXPERIENCE platform. Subsequently, the focus of the Design Experience is to define the scene. In other words, mockup a design environment with existing components and assemblies for context, then create or adapt Work in Process (WIP) components to explore a new goal for the product or a new product altogether. This scene consists of:

• Context Items
  o    Read-only components
  o    Possibly filtered product structure based on configurations, attributes, volume and tags
  o    Manual selections (from multiple sources)
  o    Design assets supports (e.g. skeletons, style surfaces, etc.)
•  Editable items (WIP)
  o    Editable Items
  o    Possibly filtered items
  o    Intermediate assemblies (if needed) and deliverables

The basic workflow for working with a Design Experience involves the following 5 steps:
 

Here is an example of how the Design Experience can be used in the what-if development effort: