Product industrial design and product structure design are two different links in the new product development process.

(1) Distinction in terms of time stage: a new product is created from scratch, and we can divide it into two stages.

The first stage is to design and generate the appearance and shape of the product

The second stage is to design the internal structure of the product in order to achieve its function.

The first stage is industrial design, first

The second stage is the product structure design, which is followed

(2) Distinction between purposes and functions:

Because industrial design is to design the appearance of the product, that is, the part of the exterior that is exposed to the outside and can be seen directly, the purpose is naturally to attract the customer's eye.

In industrial design, there are the following links

The appearance of the prototype of the conceived product → hand-drawn→ graphic renderings are made into flat renderings with graphic software PS, Coredraw, etc., → 3D software is made into 3D → manual or machined to make a 1:1 model→ modified → finalized version

In the process of creating 3D, 3D software may be used, but it is biased towards building complex surfaces

Structural design is to realize the function, for example, there are many parts in the appearance, and it is necessary to design hooks and screws inside to achieve assembly. Some products have some electrical functions, MP3, DVD and other electronic products, so it is necessary to design the PCB circuit board internally and design the corresponding structure for it.

Structural design is to complete the above on the basis of the 3D surface generated by industrial design, and the main software of design is what you call CAD, PROE, UG, CATIA, SOLIDWORK, etc., because these software are parametric software, and have interfaces with CNC machining, etc., which is a relatively complete structural design software.