Accelerate the digital thread from CAD to CFD with Unity Industry

Accelerate the digital thread from CAD to CFD with Unity Industry

The digital thread is a traceable line through the production life cycle of an asset, from design to simulation to analysis. It breaks when design, simulation, and review teams work from different versions of the same asset. Every fix or change means another build and potential schedule delays.

In this webinar, Chris Mulberry, Senior Solution Architect on the Unity Industry Solutions team, demonstrates how to accelerate that workflow with Unity Industry.

Learn how Unity 6, Unity Asset Transformer, and Unity Asset Manager connect design, simulation, and decision makers in one live workflow.

Key takeaways

Watch the webinar to learn how to:

• Automate CAD-to-GLB conversion with Unity Asset Transformer and pipeline automation.
• Run Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and aerodynamic analysis at runtime.
• Provide feedback tied to a specific asset version in Unity Asset Manager, and control asset access with roles.
• Review results on a headset, tablet, or phone with Unity’s build once, deploy anywhere solution.

Webinar description and summary

Watch a CAD change directly update CFD results

The demo follows one change from the designer’s desk to the simulation, without the need to rebuild. Topics covered include:

Sync SolidWorks to Asset Manager

Chris spots that he’s working from the wrong version of a SolidWorks assembly, so he updates it and saves. A thin client he built with Claude Code on top of the Asset Manager API syncs the change to Unity Asset Manager. He can point the client at any organization, any asset, and any pipeline.

Convert CAD to GLB automatically

Using Pipeline Automation, the SolidWorks endpoint pulls the latest version, and Unity Asset Transformer converts the assembly to a GLB file. The result is placed in Asset Manager, ready for a runtime application. Save the pipeline as a template and reduce the need to start from scratch every time.

Run CFD at runtime with Unity 6

The simulation runs a CFD airflow analysis on a CAD assembly (in this demo, it’s a race car). A virtual camera system shows the airflow from different points of view. Chris adjusts airflow speed and measures lift and drag. When the new assembly arrives, the simulation picks it up at runtime.

Provide feedback tied to the asset version

Asset Manager is built on Unity version control, so every comment attaches to a specific version. Reviewers look at the 3D asset from any angle and add spatial annotations, so the design team knows where each note applies.

Control access with roles

Asset Manager offers granular role-based access control. Each asset belongs to an organization, and you define user groups so the right people see the right data at the right time.

Review on a headset, tablet, or phone

Users review results on whatever device they prefer, thanks to Unity’s build once, deploy anywhere approach that covers headsets, tablets, and phones.

Webinar transcript

Introduction

Hello everyone. We’ll be showcasing how Unity industry solutions are accelerating the digital thread.

My name is Chris Mulberry. I’m a Senior Solution Architect on the Industry Solutions team. I work across automotive and aerospace simulation specifically for large-scale digital twins, immersive work instructions and enterprise production deployments.

Quick note, everything I’ll be showcasing today is subject to change. So I would not make any buying decisions based on what we’ll cover.

What is the digital thread?

First off, what is the digital thread and what does it look like for our customers today?

The digital thread is essentially a traceable line for the production life cycle of an asset. We start with the design phase and typically what I see across our strategic accounts is every team is working across disparate systems. So we’re all working from different versions of the asset and then we move on to simulation. Typically the teams are working across all these outdated versions. So when everyone gets onto the same page, every fix essentially means another build and another schedule slip.

And then last but not least, analyzing the results of these simulations. The stakeholders who ultimately hold the budgets aren’t able to sign off with production changes with confidence because they’re not able to see it in context.

The bottleneck from CAD to CFD results

What does this look like in terms of where the bottleneck arises from CAD to CFD results? Typically because these teams are working off outdated versions, the decision makers aren’t able to make confident decisions off the data because they don’t trust it. So what I’ll be showcasing today is essentially the synchronization of workspaces using thin clients.

When the source production data gets changed, the CFD results get changed in real time. Again, taking the human out of the loop. The scenario that I have just described is essentially the dilemma that I’ve had from firsthand experience working in these production teams. Again the timelines are very aggressive. So even just finding the asset data is typically going to take a lot of cycles to find and then to get the data optimized for a runtime simulation for CFD cases. Again more humans in the loop, more fail points. We’ll be showcasing what that looks like using an integrated services approach. So without further ado, we’ll jump right into our simulation.

CFD airflow simulation in Unity 6

What you’re looking at here is leveraging Unity 6 and our DOTS/ECS frameworks. We’re able to do a CFD airflow analysis on a CAD assembly. What’s nice is we actually have a virtual camera system. So we can actually see what the air flow looks like from different points of view on an asset. In this case, it’s a racing simulation. We also have the ability to fine-tune the speed of the airflow. So we can measure lift drag, for example. All the aerodynamic data is actually leveraging our physics library.

Spatial feedback in Asset Manager

Now that I have a good understanding of what results to expect in a production deployment I would like to share that feedback directly with our design team. Leveraging our Asset Manager I can quickly go back to our asset and because the data is 3D I have the ability to look at it from different points of view. So again spatial context is key. I can leave my feedback using our comment system because Asset Manager is built off our Unity version control system. All the feedback is directly tied to that specific version. So we can add in spatial annotations adding a more granular feedback.

Role-based access control

Another quick note before I move on is, Asset Manager has very granular role-based access control. Every asset is tied to a specific organization and you can define specific user groups. So the right users have access to the right data at the right time.

Syncing SolidWorks to Asset Manager

Now that we have the spatial feedback directly tied to the design I can go into my source production data. In this case I’m using SolidWorks for my assembly design. We can see with the assembly file that I’ve been working on, I realized that I was working with the wrong version of the asset. I can make sure to update the assembly, which here we go. We have the updated enclosed version of the assembly file. We want to save the latest version. And then leveraging our Asset Manager as an API, I’ve built out a thin client using Claude Code.

We can essentially create a real-time synchronization of my workspace in SolidWorks with my latest asset in Asset Manager. Quick note: I can configure this thin client to any organization, any asset, any pipeline. We’ll synchronize the latest change to Asset Manager, give it a second. Now that our asset is stored in our cloud bucket, we’ll go back into Asset Manager.

Pipeline automation with Asset Transformer and Asset Manager

Now we’re going to jump into our pipeline automation service, which is how we automate the real-time 3D data pipeline. We go into our job system and you can see we have the latest job running on the latest assembly file here. What’s happening is the SolidWorks endpoint is reaching out for the latest version of the asset and we’re using Unity Asset Transformer to convert the SolidWorks assembly into a GLB file. Once that GLB file is converted, we save that in Asset Manager for use in a runtime application.

Another thing to note is the pipeline automation can be saved as a template. So every time you want to create a new pipeline you don’t have to start from scratch.

Updating the simulation at runtime

Now the job is being processed, what we’ll see is without the rebuilding process, we can go into the latest version and perfect, we have the new assembly available. Again, we can update that, it just takes a second. Now we have the latest version of the assembly to do our CFD analysis.

The key here is I’m doing this at runtime. We have not gone through the rebuild process. You can iterate much faster leveraging this system.

What you’ll notice is this green mesh. What I’ve done is I’ve created another connector to Databricks for connecting real time telemetry data, which in this case is pressure tap data. I’ve integrated Databricks with a compute shader that you can see the pressure update in real time. If we go into Databricks we’ll see in the SQL warehouse all that data is queried instantly and then mapped to that re-mesh. Again, we’ve showcased real-time telemetry data, synchronizing assemblies to CFD results, and all of this is at runtime.

What happened under the hood

Let’s look at what happened under the hood. Our design engineers can focus on the workspace they’re comfortable in and optimize their focus on deep work rather than jumping across all these different workspaces. The design engineer can check in the change to Asset Manager leveraging our pipeline automation service. We’re optimizing and automating converting the asset from CAD to GLB.

Freeing up specialists

All of that data gets stored in our Asset Manager collection with spatial annotations, change logs, and all of it is versioned automatically. Then our platform engineer can focus on the private cloud or on-prem version of Asset Manager and all of the feedback can be stored in that asset and then synchronized with the Unity engine. Again, the simulation developer can focus on building capabilities and building features rather than wasting too many cycles, reaching out to the design engineers, reaching out to other vendors. They can just focus on building the most high fidelity and interactive simulation. The simulation developer can focus on the build and the architecture of the build. And finally, the executive sponsor can focus on being able to supply feedback based on whatever client device they’re comfortable with. It could be a headset, could be a tablet, could be a phone. One of the main value propositions of Unity is build once, deploy anywhere.

A repeatable process, not a bespoke solution

Looking at this more as a repeatable process rather than a bespoke solution, you can see if we lean into this process connecting the assets, validating the results at runtime, and then reviewing in Asset Manager, this is ultimately what’s going to shorten the gap from data to decision.

Multiple use cases

What we showcased today is using aerodynamic CFD data. But this can be repeated across multiple industries, multiple applications. It could be boats, planes, or helicopters. We’re really focused on providing you the most comprehensive integrated industry data platform.

Making 3D accessible

We’re extending all of our services and we have other resources and webinars and blog posts on our Unity CLI. So you can even integrate with Cursor or Claude. We’re focused on lowering the barrier of entry. So you can focus on driving your business rather than creating bespoke scripts or managing different connectors across different services.

Unblocking innovation

I will leave you with one question: how much innovation would happen if you eliminate the need for manual changeovers?

What you saw today leveraging an integrated services architecture, we can synchronize all these workspaces and streamline the digital thread from source production data to downstream CFD simulation.

We’re here to help, reach out to me on LinkedIn. I’m more than happy to answer any questions you have. Hopefully you’ve got value from this session and I hope to see you next time. Thank you.

This transcript has been lightly editorialized for readability.