Launched to the public at the 2006 British Motor Show in London and scheduled to go on sale at the end of the year, the new 5-door Freelander 2 retains its own award-winning styling while adopting the distinctive family face of its stable mates, the Range Rover, the Ranger Rover Sport and the Land Rover Discovery 3 - all of which were also designed with the aid of ICEM Surf.

ICEM’s software was used throughout the design development of the body and interior of the new Freelander 2, from the receipt of concept sketches and raw 3D scan data of the clay styling model, through to release into tooling development of the final Class A surfaces design data.

As the body and interior designs were refined in ICEM Surf, the evolving Class A surface model data was exported to Land Rover’s engineering CAD/CAM system for incorporation into the ‘master engineering model’ and digital mock-up of the vehicle.

Surface model data was also made available at specified intervals to the people responsible for developing the production tooling. This enabled ‘downstream’ processes, such as tooling design, to begin earlier in the overall design-to-manufacturing process.

In addition, ICEM Surf was used extensively throughout the regular design review meetings between Land Rover’s designers, engineers, manufacturing and quality personnel and suppliers to ensure that as the design evolved it continued to meet the twin goals of aesthetic quality and engineering feasibility.

According to ICEM, "As well as enabling the designers and engineers at Land Rover to achieve its class-leading optical design quality in the body and interior of the new Freelander 2, the use of ICEM Surf also significantly reduced the need for changes to production tooling for components with Class A surfaces. This cut tooling costs and helped to ensure that the production vehicles meet Land Rover’s manufacturing quality targets."

“We are proud to be associated with the work that Land Rover undertook in the design development of its new Freelander 2,” said Kate Mills, global marketing director, ICEM Ltd., “and we look forward to supporting the company in the use of our latest software developments in the future.”

About ICEM

With its headquarters in the UK, ICEM Ltd. is a leading worldwide developer of advanced surface modelling, surface model validation and design visualisation software. The company has a worldwide network of sales and support offices and specialist distributors covering Europe, the USA, South America, Australia, Japan and the South East Asia region.

Customers include the Ford Motor Company, DaimlerChrysler Group, Volkswagen Audi Group, Porsche, BMW, PSA Peugeot Citroën, Renault, Nissan, Subaru, Airbus Industrie and Delta Air Lines.

(Source: ICEM)