The example I was shown was that of a cube that needed to shrink from 6 in. Instead of redrawing every line, all the engineer did was indicate what he wanted the new dimensions to be, and how much liquid he needed the cube to hold. The system then remodeled the cube, graphing its progress as it went along. Both the gas tank and the crankshaft would traditionally be designed using geometric iteration and reieration to achieve design objectives. With the behavioral modeling technology, design engineers let specific requirements and functional behavior drive the model.
Animation is another key enhancement to the new system.
The Mechanism Design function enables motion simulation based on the behavior of an object or component. With it, engineers get a good idea of how something will move within the assembly and design constraints assigned to it. Full animation tools can be used to set up anything from general motion simulations to mock-ups of large assembly sequences. It may also be a nice way to provide assembly data to other links in the supply chain without giving away proprietary design data. From here, the engineer applies to the model whatever strategies work best.