BeamWise Blends Biophotonic And Model Based Design Expertise

The following announcement went out this morning: Biophotonic System Design Optimized Through New Technology BeamWise from Design Parametrics, Kinetic River, and Plan Energy I have added some additional hyperlinks for clarity. Giacomo Vacca will include a brief overview of BeamWise in his talk at the Bio2Devices Group on Sep-24-2013, “New Tools for Cancer Research: Probing Cellular Processes at High Throughput,” and describe how it contributed to the design of an innovative flow cytometer currently in use for research.

SAN JOSE, Calif., Sept. 13, 2013  – Design Parametrics, Incorporated, Kinetic River Corporation, and Plan Energy Ltd. announced a partnership to develop and market a set of software tools and related services for the design of flow cytometers and other complex optical biomedical systems. The software and service offering is called BeamWise™ and is available from Design Parametrics and Kinetic River for evaluation. With BeamWise, a researcher or instrument developer can intuitively and concisely define an optical system; the software automatically generates 2D functional drawings, full 3D CAD models, and a parts list for implementation using real optomechanical components.

BeamWise builds on Design Parametrics’ two decades of experience in developing model-based design automation and configuration solutions for products and systems as diversified as electrical systems, capital equipment, building structures, and process plants. Kinetic River, with more than 15 years of optical system design experience, offers design services enhanced by the BeamWise technology. Plan Energy, with 9 years of Design++ model development experience, offers customization and enhancement services for BeamWise-based system models.

Tapio Karras, CEO of Design Parametrics, commented on the collaboration with Kinetic River: “Design Parametrics has always been successful by working with industry experts who have deep domain knowledge. It’s been a pleasure to collaborate with Giacomo Vacca, Ph.D. on the development of BeamWise. He combines a strong understanding of theoretical principles with the practical insights that come from his extensive hands-on experience in designing flow cytometers. He has been of invaluable assistance in offering a practitioner’s perspective on the design process as well as specific guidance on how to translate conceptual designs into functional models.”

Karras added, “Services from Kinetic River and Plan Energy using Design Parametrics’ Design++ knowledge-based engineering platform will allow biomedical instrumentation companies to simplify and automate the design of optical systems. Kinetic River and Plan Energy enable both researchers and engineers to jumpstart their development process.”

“With Design Parametrics’ Design++ based BeamWise package, design and engineering tasks that typically take experienced teams days to weeks to complete can now be handled in a matter of minutes. With this kind of dramatic efficiency improvement, I believe that BeamWise will become a standard platform for high-level exploration of design options, as well as for the generation of manufacturing documentation and commercialization specifications,” said Giacomo Vacca, Ph.D., founder and President of Kinetic River.

Hannu Lehtimaki, a seasoned Design++ application developer and principal of Plan Energy, observed, “While there is always a role for tinkering and trial-and-error methods in the design of innovative instrumentation, we have seen that development effort can be substantially reduced by using software models, as we have done successfully in several industries. The time needed for the release to production of an optical design can be shortened considerably using the Design++ platform and the BeamWise tools.”

About Design Parametrics
Design Parametrics is a Silicon Valley technology company offering Design++, a knowledge-based engineering platform that significantly simplifies the capture of in-house engineering expertise and streamlines integration of legacy systems into design automation and product configuration solutions. Design++ has an over 20-year history of supporting high-value design automation and product configuration applications at companies such as NCI Building Systems, General Electric Oil & Gas, Fluor Corporation, and Buhler AG. Design++ is also the foundation for a commercial end-user application product for conceptual plant design: Bentley PlantWise, which has been on the market for 16 years.

About Kinetic River
Kinetic River is a biophotonics design and product development company with a passion for creating and enabling tools for innovative and disruptive life science research, biomedical instrumentation, and clinical diagnostics. The list of Kinetic River clients includes EMD Millipore, National Instruments, the U.S. National Institutes of Health, and leading universities, as well as startup companies. Recent projects range from concept formation to design, prototyping, and engineering of research systems and volume production cell-analysis instrumentation.

About Plan Energy
Plan Energy is a consulting company participating in international energy projects (oil, gas, power generation, electricity transmission, and renewable energy), and design automation and data management projects. Clients served over the last 20 years include the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the World Bank, ministries of several countries, the European Union, and industrial companies. Hannu Lehtimaki of Plan Energy is one of the original Design++ developers and a cofounder of the first Design++ startup company that spun out of Nokia. Today he provides expert consulting services for Design++ based applications development.

We have been working with the three firms for more than six months to define and develop the technology. I have had the privilege to work on some high performance teams,; the BeamWise collaboration has reminded me how satisfying it is. There are always challenges when you are blending expertise from many separate domains, in this case optics, mechanical modeling, artificial intelligence, and design automation. But the mutual respect and joint commitment to solving problems that will enable the design of new instruments for both life sciences research and clinical practice has allowed us to make substantial progress in what is a relatively short amount of time.

“I get quiet joy from the observation of any man who does his job well.”
William Feather