Vehicle Package Engineering Tools

Vehicle packaging is a key activity during the development of a new vehicle. Vehicle packaging involves creating vehicle drawings or computer-assisted design (CAD) models that show locations and spaces occupied by the vehicle systems, occupants, and items brought into the vehicle. The package engineers not only create full-size scale drawings and project full-size images of the CAD models on large screens, but they also create full-size mock-ups and bucks to get a realistic perception of space to design and fit all systems and visibility of exterior and interior objects required for driving safely. The outputs of the vehicle packaging activity are thus required by all disciplines and activities involved in the design process to visualize the product and understand the space constraints within which all the vehicle systems need to be configured. This chapter also provides definitions and computations of many reference points and interior and exterior dimensions used in the creation of vehicle drawings and CAD models. Thus, all design and engineering activities need to constantly work with the CAD models to ensure that their designs of all vehicle entities (e.g., systems, subsystems, or components) fit within the vehicle space defined by the exterior and interior vehicle surfaces.