CAESES vs. con­ven­tional CAD software for com­po­nent modeling

Devel­op­ing a geometry that fulfills all given require­ments – such as due to per­for­mance and man­u­fac­tur­ing – is rarely a straight­for­ward process. In many engi­neer­ing projects, espe­cially those involv­ing aero­dy­namic surfaces, light­weight struc­tures, or cus­tomized com­po­nents, the chal­lenge extends far beyond building a 3D model.

The geometry model must be robust when changing para­me­ter values, consider man­u­fac­tur­ing con­straints, inte­grate with sim­u­la­tion work­flows, and generate suitable export data for fol­low­ing processes and pro­duc­tion. Even rel­a­tively small adjust­ments can affect multiple down­stream com­po­nents, making flex­i­bil­ity and workflow sta­bil­ity increas­ingly impor­tant through­out development.

To better under­stand how dif­fer­ent CAD tools approach handle these chal­lenges, a com­par­i­son study was carried out on the vertical sta­bi­lizer of the human powered aircraft ​“Libelle” from Odonata e.V. as a prac­ti­cal engi­neer­ing example.

The goal was to create high-per­form­ing and man­u­fac­tur­ing-ready geome­tries, and more specif­i­cally, export DXF files suitable for laser cutting and hot wire cutting processes while simul­ta­ne­ously main­tain­ing enough geo­met­ric flex­i­bil­ity to support future design changes.

The project also provided an oppor­tu­nity to compare how CAESES and con­ven­tional CAD software perform in a real com­po­nent design workflow.

The com­po­nents

The sta­bi­lizer consists of several inter­con­nected com­po­nents man­u­fac­tured using dif­fer­ent mate­ri­als and processes.

While gen­er­at­ing these com­po­nents, several para­me­ters needed to remain adjustable through­out devel­op­ment, including:

• Airfoil geometry
• Chord length at root and tip
• Thick­ness distribution
• Sweep
• Geo­met­ric angle of attack

This created a highly iter­a­tive workflow where geometry changes can influ­ence multiple down­stream com­po­nents simultaneously.

Two dif­fer­ent CAD approaches

Con­ven­tional CAD software and CAESES approach geometry gen­er­a­tion differently.

Tra­di­tional CAD systems are typ­i­cally built around history-based modeling work­flows. Features are created sequen­tially, with each oper­a­tion depend­ing on previous geometry def­i­n­i­tions. This approach works well for final­ized pro­duc­tion models, tech­ni­cal drawings, and assembly-focused workflows.

However, as geometry becomes more complex and iter­a­tive, and updates become more frequent, history-based work­flows can become increas­ingly dif­fi­cult to manage. Larger mod­i­fi­ca­tions often create broken ref­er­ences, unstable features, or addi­tional manual remod­el­ing work.

CAESES approaches the problem from a more para­met­ric per­spec­tive. Instead of focusing pri­mar­ily on sequen­tial feature his­to­ries, CAESES builds geometry around para­me­ters, rela­tion­ships, and auto­mated depen­den­cies. This allows engi­neers to modify critical design para­me­ters while main­tain­ing stable down­stream geome­tries and man­u­fac­tur­ing outputs.

For man­u­fac­tur­ing-oriented projects with evolving geome­tries, this creates a fun­da­men­tally dif­fer­ent workflow experience.

Building the geometry in CAESES

The geometry in CAESES was created using a com­bi­na­tion of points, curves, surfaces, Breps, and Boolean oper­a­tions. The overall workflow was inten­tion­ally kept compact by min­i­miz­ing the number of con­trol­ling para­me­ters while still main­tain­ing enough flex­i­bil­ity for future design modifications.

Airfoil sections form the foun­da­tion of the sta­bi­lizer geometry. Para­me­ters such as chord length, thick­ness, spar position, and spanwise posi­tion­ing can directly be adjusted within the model def­i­n­i­tion. The spar position plays an impor­tant role because it influ­ences the aero­dy­namic control behavior of the aircraft.

Using ruled surfaces between the airfoil sections, the sta­bi­lizer geometry could effi­ciently be gen­er­ated while remain­ing fully para­met­ric through­out devel­op­ment. One impor­tant advan­tage of this approach is that geometry mod­i­fi­ca­tions can be applied at vir­tu­ally any stage without requir­ing large portions of the model to be rebuilt manually.

The result­ing surfaces were con­verted into water­tight Brep geome­tries suitable for down­stream pro­cess­ing such as Boolean oper­a­tions, sim­u­la­tion prepa­ra­tion, and man­u­fac­tur­ing export.

As the workflow expanded, folders In CAESES were used to organize the indi­vid­ual man­u­fac­tur­ing com­po­nents, includ­ing ribs, molds, tem­plates, and struc­tural supports. This made it easier to manage increas­ingly complex rela­tion­ships between com­po­nents while main­tain­ing a clear workflow structure.

The man­u­fac­tur­ing geome­tries them­selves were gen­er­ated through Sub-Breps and Boolean oper­a­tions. Rib sections, for example, can be created auto­mat­i­cally based on spacing def­i­n­i­tions and rib thick­ness parameters.

Instead of manually posi­tion­ing each com­po­nent indi­vid­u­ally, para­met­ric rela­tion­ships control the place­ment and gen­er­a­tion process. This sig­nif­i­cantly reduced repet­i­tive modeling work and sim­pli­fied later geometry modifications.

Finally, the indi­vid­ual com­po­nents were exported as DXF files suitable for laser cutting and hot wire cutting systems.

Com­par­ing the workflows

The same geometry was also created using a con­ven­tional CAD tool by an expe­ri­enced engineer familiar with both systems. The com­par­i­son focused pri­mar­ily on overall engi­neer­ing effort and workflow robust­ness rather than simply com­par­ing feature lists. One impor­tant obser­va­tion was the dif­fer­ence in how both systems handled geometry changes.

Within the con­ven­tional CAD workflow, the history-based modeling struc­ture intro­duced addi­tional manual work whenever larger geometry mod­i­fi­ca­tions affected down­stream features. As depen­den­cies became more complex, rebuild­ing and repair­ing geometry rela­tion­ships required increas­ing amounts of time.

In CAESES, the para­met­ric workflow struc­ture handled these updates much more effi­ciently. Because rela­tion­ships between com­po­nents are embedded directly into the model logic, many geometry changes prop­a­gated auto­mat­i­cally through­out the workflow. This reduced manual remod­el­ing effort sig­nif­i­cantly and helped maintain stable man­u­fac­tur­ing outputs even as the geometry evolved.

Devel­op­ment time comparison

The dif­fer­ence between the two approaches became par­tic­u­larly visible in the total devel­op­ment time.

Creating the complete man­u­fac­tur­ing-ready geometry required:

• approx­i­mately 6 hours in CAESES
• approx­i­mately 14 hours in a con­ven­tional CAD tool

The dif­fer­ence became even more relevant once geometry mod­i­fi­ca­tions were intro­duced. While the con­ven­tional CAD workflow required addi­tional trou­bleshoot­ing and rebuild­ing effort, CAESES main­tained a sig­nif­i­cantly more stable workflow struc­ture during iter­a­tive updates. This was one of the clearest indi­ca­tors of how para­met­ric geometry gen­er­a­tion can improve effi­ciency in man­u­fac­tur­ing-ready engi­neer­ing projects.

Where CAESES shows clear advantages

Robust geometry updates

One of the strongest advan­tages observed in CAESES is the ability to apply geometry changes without desta­bi­liz­ing the workflow.

In the given example, para­me­ters such as:

• Airfoil def­i­n­i­tions
• Chord lengths
• Thick­ness distributions
• Sweep
• Struc­tural positioning

could be adjusted while main­tain­ing func­tional down­stream geome­tries and man­u­fac­tur­ing outputs.

For iter­a­tive engi­neer­ing projects, this level of robust­ness can sig­nif­i­cantly reduce manual rework.

Effi­cient airfoil geometry creation

Creating aero­dy­namic geome­tries using standard def­i­n­i­tions such as NACA series or CST curves is straight­for­ward within CAESES.

This sim­pli­fies the setup of airfoil-driven geome­tries and reduces manual prepa­ra­tion work.

Sim­u­la­tion-ready geometry

The gen­er­ated geometry is also imme­di­ately suitable for sim­u­la­tion work­flows, including:

• Struc­tural analysis
• Aero­dy­namic analysis
• Low-fidelity sim­u­la­tion methods
• High-fidelity CFD workflows

This reduces the need for addi­tional geometry prepa­ra­tion before analysis.

Geometry checking and visualization

CAESES also provides direct visu­al­iza­tion of prob­lem­atic geometry areas such as open edges.

This improves geometry reli­a­bil­ity during modeling, export prepa­ra­tion, and sim­u­la­tion setup.

Strong support for free-form geometry

The flex­i­bil­ity of the CAESES modeling approach is par­tic­u­larly effec­tive for highly cus­tomized and free-form geometries.

Custom feature def­i­n­i­tions and para­met­ric rela­tion­ships make it easier to maintain adapt­able work­flows without becoming con­strained by rigid feature histories.

Con­ven­tional CAD in tra­di­tional workflows

Con­ven­tional CAD systems remain widely used for pro­duc­tion drawings, assem­blies, and standard doc­u­men­ta­tion work­flows. Their inter­faces and work­flows are also highly familiar across the engi­neer­ing industry.

However, this com­par­i­son high­lights the lim­i­ta­tions of history-based modeling when handling iter­a­tive geometry changes, auto­mated man­u­fac­tur­ing prepa­ra­tion, and highly para­met­ric workflows.

As geometry com­plex­ity increases and updates become more frequent, CAESES main­tains a sig­nif­i­cantly more stable and effi­cient workflow struc­ture through­out the project.

Final thoughts

The com­par­i­son demon­strated that both CAESES and con­ven­tional CAD software are capable of gen­er­at­ing man­u­fac­tur­ing-ready geometry.

However, the work­flows differ sig­nif­i­cantly once geometry flex­i­bil­ity, iter­a­tive updates, sim­u­la­tion inte­gra­tion, and auto­mated man­u­fac­tur­ing prepa­ra­tion become impor­tant requirements.

Con­ven­tional CAD systems remain highly effec­tive for pro­duc­tion-focused engi­neer­ing tasks and stan­dard­ized doc­u­men­ta­tion workflows.

CAESES demon­strated clear advan­tages in:

• Para­met­ric geometry generation
• Robust handling of design changes
• Auto­mated man­u­fac­tur­ing preparation
• Sim­u­la­tion-ready geometry workflows
• Free-form geometry modeling

For engi­neer­ing teams working on aero­dy­namic surfaces, light­weight struc­tures, or highly iter­a­tive com­po­nent man­u­fac­tur­ing projects, these advan­tages can trans­late directly into reduced manual effort, faster geometry updates, and more effi­cient devel­op­ment workflows.

As engi­neer­ing processes continue to become more sim­u­la­tion-driven and data-centric, robust para­met­ric geometry work­flows are becoming increas­ingly impor­tant across advanced design appli­ca­tions.