Patent ID: 8463583

Claim:
In a method for designing a formed sheet-metal part, performed by a processor of a computing system, by means of a numerical model of a target geometry of the part being modified interactively by a user, a method for displaying a visual representation of the quality of the formed sheet-metal part, the method comprising the steps of: maintaining in computer storage the numerical model of the target geometry of the part being modified; by the computing system, performing a simulation procedure, wherein deformation of the part by a forming process that transforms the part from an initial geometry to the target geometry is computed, wherein thinning and thickening effects of the forming process on the part are computed as a function of restraining force, and wherein the computation steps for the part deformation and the part thinning and thickening effects are repeated for different values of the restraining force; on a display device, displaying a visual representation of the part subjected to the simulated forming process, the visual representation of the part including a an image of a surface of the part and multiple regions of the surface of the part; wherein each of the multiple regions is defined by the thickening and thinning effects that reside within a predetermined range; and wherein for the each of the multiple regions, an entire surface area of the region is computed; and by the computing system, computing and displaying on the display device a diagram displaying relative sizes of the entire surface areas of the each of the multiple regions, plotted against the restraining force.