JP4513611B2 - Parts placement design device - Google Patents

Description

  The present invention relates to a technique that is effective when applied to a component arrangement design device used for determining a mounting position of an injection device that injects a fluid to a structure.

  When determining the position of each of a plurality of structures arranged with respect to a predetermined device, it is necessary to determine the positions so that the two three-dimensional figures (structures) do not interfere with each other. It is not efficient to determine such a position while actually repeating the arrangement using an actual structure. For this reason, such a position determination is performed on an information processing apparatus such as a component arrangement design apparatus. For example, there is an apparatus that determines the arrangement by adjusting the posture of each solid figure so that two solid figures do not interfere with each other (see Patent Document 1). Also, an inspection method has been proposed in which the position of a movable part model is adjusted while verifying the presence or absence of interference between the movable part model and another component part model (see Patent Document 2).

  However, when these conventional techniques are applied when determining the mounting position of a cleaning device (injection device) such as a washer nozzle with respect to an object to be cleaned (structure) such as a headlamp, There was a problem. That is, when arranging the cleaning object and the cleaning device, it is necessary to verify whether or not the nozzle of the cleaning device is properly positioned with respect to the cleaning object, but the conventional technology does not have this point. It was not possible to carry out sufficient verification. For this reason, conventionally, it has been necessary to verify whether or not the nozzle is properly arranged with respect to the object to be cleaned, in addition to preventing the three-dimensional figure from interfering, and a lot of time is spent on the design. It was.

In response to such a problem, a component arrangement design apparatus for verifying whether or not the nozzle is appropriately arranged with respect to the object to be cleaned has also been proposed. 4 and 5 are diagrams showing examples of display by a conventional component arrangement design apparatus. In FIG. 4, a headlamp is displayed as an example of the cleaning object. Further, the lens surface of the headlamp included in the jetting area of the fluid jetted from the nozzle provided in the cleaning device is displayed as a hatched portion. The user then sets the ejection angle (the angle between the ejection surface and the lens surface of the headlamp, in other words, the contour of the outermost contour where the ejection area and the headlamp intersect, in other words, the intersection line between the ejection surface and the lens surface). For example, the verification is performed by referring to the outermost contour intersection angle at which the ejection area and the headlamp intersect. The user refers to the injection angle by selecting a predetermined boundary point and displaying a cross section at the boundary point when referring to the injection angle. FIG. 5 shows a display example of such a cross section. The user was able to determine whether or not the injection angle was appropriate by referring to the cross section as shown in FIG.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 11-288430 JP 2000-111302 A

  However, in such a display example by the conventional component arrangement design apparatus, when determining whether or not the injection angle at each boundary point is appropriate, the user has to bother to select and display a cross section including an arbitrary boundary point. It was. In order to determine whether or not the injection angle is appropriate as a whole, it is necessary to perform verification based on the injection angles at a considerable number of boundary points. Further, when the arrangement of the cleaning device is changed, it is necessary to refer to the injection angles at a considerable number of boundary points again. For this reason, conventionally, the user has not been able to easily determine whether or not the cleaning device is properly arranged and to determine the arrangement.

  Therefore, the present invention solves these problems, and when determining the mounting position of an injection device (for example, a cleaning device) for injecting a fluid, a structure (for example, a head to be cleaned) that is an injection target of the fluid It is an object of the present invention to provide an apparatus, a method, or the like that makes it possible to easily determine whether or not an injection device is appropriately arranged with respect to a lamp.

  In order to solve the above problems, the present invention is configured as follows. A first aspect of the present invention is a component arrangement design device, a storage means for storing information relating to an injection area including an injection direction of an injection device for injecting a fluid, and an attachment position for setting an attachment position of the injection device A setting unit, a three-dimensional shape setting unit that sets a three-dimensional shape of a structure to which fluid is to be injected by the injection device, information on an attachment position of the injection device, and an injection area of the fluid injected from the injection device Based on the information, there are provided estimation means for estimating the injection state of the fluid with respect to the three-dimensional shape of the structure, and display means for displaying the estimation result by the estimation means.

  The attachment position setting means may be configured to set the attachment position according to a predetermined initial value or the like, or may be configured to set the attachment position according to a user input. Further, the solid shape setting means may be configured to set the solid shape according to a predetermined initial value or the like, or may be configured to set the solid shape according to a user input. The three-dimensional shape setting means may be configured such that the user can set the three-dimensional shape by operating the input device, or the three-dimensional shape is read by reading the three-dimensional data from a recording medium or network device designated by the user. It may be configured to set.

  According to the first aspect of the present invention configured as described above, the user can easily visually recognize the injection state estimated by the estimation unit using the display unit. For this reason, when determining the attachment position of the injection device, the user can easily determine whether or not the injection device is appropriately arranged with respect to the structure that is the injection target of the fluid. Further, conventionally, there has been a problem that the accuracy of the mounting position varies depending on the number of cross sections referred to by the user. However, according to the first aspect of the present invention, since the number of cross-sections referred to by the user does not vary, it is possible to prevent such variation in accuracy.

  Moreover, the estimation means in the first aspect of the present invention may be configured to calculate the intersection angle of the outermost contour where the injection area and the structure intersect.

  Further, the display means in the first aspect of the present invention displays the outline of the outermost contour using a plurality of line types based on the size of the intersection angle estimated by the estimation means configured as described above. It may be configured. Specifically, for example, the display unit may be configured to display information color-coded based on the size of the intersection angle estimated by the estimation unit. According to the first aspect of the present invention configured as described above, the user can easily determine the intersection angle calculated by the estimation unit by visually recognizing the line type and color classification displayed on the display unit. Become. For this reason, when determining the attachment position of the injection device, the user can easily determine whether or not the injection device is appropriately arranged with respect to the structure that is the injection target of the fluid.

  Moreover, the structure in the first aspect of the present invention may be a lens surface of a headlamp provided in a vehicle, and the ejection device may be a headlamp cleaner that ejects fluid to the headlamp.

A second aspect of the present invention is a display device, which is information on a boundary line formed by a line of intersection between an ejection surface of a fluid ejected by the ejection device and a surface of a structure on which the fluid is ejected, And input means for receiving the magnitude of the angle between the injection surface and the surface at a plurality of points on the boundary line, and the boundary line,
Display means for displaying with different line types based on the magnitude of the angle at a plurality of points existing on the boundary line. According to the second aspect of the present invention configured as described above, the user can easily determine the angle at each part of the boundary line by visually recognizing the displayed line type. As a result, it is possible to efficiently determine the mounting position of the injection device.

  The configurations described above can be combined as much as possible. The first aspect and the second aspect may be realized by executing a program by the information processing apparatus. That is, the present invention specifies the processing executed by each unit in the first aspect and the second aspect described above as a program for causing the information processing apparatus to execute or a recording medium on which the program is recorded. Can do. Further, the present invention may be specified by a method in which the information processing apparatus executes the processing executed by each of the above-described means.

  According to the present invention, the user can easily determine whether or not the injection device is appropriately arranged with respect to the structure that is the injection target of the fluid when determining the mounting position of the injection device. It becomes.

[Device configuration]
Hereinafter, a configuration example of the component arrangement design apparatus 1 according to the present invention will be described. The component arrangement design device 1 is a device for a case where an object to be cleaned, which is an example of a structure, is a headlamp of a vehicle. However, the headlamp is only a specific example of the object to be cleaned, and the component arrangement design device 1 may be configured to perform processing on other objects to be cleaned. The object to be cleaned is only a specific example of the structure in the present invention. Similarly, the component arrangement design device 1 is a device for a case where a cleaning device, which is an example of an injection device, is a device that cleans headlamp dirt with water pressure. Similarly to the above, such an apparatus is only a specific example of the cleaning apparatus, and the component arrangement design apparatus 1 may be configured to perform processing on another cleaning apparatus. Further, the cleaning device is only a specific example of the injection device.

  The component arrangement design device 1 includes a CPU (Central Processing Unit), a main storage device (RAM), an auxiliary storage device, and the like connected via a bus in terms of hardware. The auxiliary storage device is configured using a nonvolatile storage device. The non-volatile memory device referred to here is a so-called ROM (Read-Only Memory: EPROM (Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory), EEPROM (Electrically Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory, etc.). ), Hard disk, etc.

  FIG. 1 is a diagram showing an example of functional blocks of a component arrangement design apparatus 1 according to the present invention. The component arrangement design device 1 loads various programs (OS, applications, etc.) stored in the auxiliary storage device into the main storage device and is executed by the CPU, whereby the attachment position setting unit 2, the three-dimensional shape setting unit 3, and the like. It functions as a device including a storage unit 4, an estimation unit 5, a display unit 6 and the like. The attachment position setting unit 2, the three-dimensional shape setting unit 3, the estimation unit 5, and the display unit 6 are realized by executing a program by the CPU. Further, the estimation unit 5 may be configured as a dedicated chip. Next, each functional unit included in the component arrangement design device 1 will be described.

[Mounting position setting section]
The attachment position setting unit 2 is realized by using an input device such as a pointing device (tablet, mouse, etc.), a keyboard, or a button, for example. In this case, the attachment position setting unit 2 sets an attachment position, an attachment angle, and the like of the cleaning device in accordance with a user operation on the input device. At this time, the mounting position and mounting angle of the cleaning device may be a relative position and angle with respect to the headlamp that is the cleaning target. If the position of the headlamp in the vehicle has already been determined, the mounting position and mounting angle of the cleaning device may be an absolute position with respect to the vehicle.

  Further, the attachment position setting unit 2 may be configured to set the attachment position, the attachment angle, and the like of the cleaning device in accordance with a preset initial value.

(3D shape setting part)
The three-dimensional shape setting unit 3 is realized by using an input device such as a pointing device (tablet, mouse, etc.), a keyboard, and buttons. In this case, the three-dimensional shape setting unit 3 sets the three-dimensional shape of the headlamp according to the user's operation on the input device. The three-dimensional shape of the headlamp may be drawn by the user with a pointing device, for example. The three-dimensional shape of the headlamp may be set by inputting coordinate values and angles at each point using a keyboard. The three-dimensional shape of the headlamp may be set by inputting data of a headlamp already designed by another apparatus via a network or a recording medium. The three-dimensional shape of the headlamp may be set by the user selecting one from a plurality of headlamp shapes recorded as candidates in advance. Further, the three-dimensional shape setting unit 3 may be configured to set a three-dimensional shape according to a preset initial value.

[Storage section]
The storage unit 4 is configured using a so-called nonvolatile storage device. The memory | storage part 4 memorize | stores the information regarding the injection area containing the injection direction of the fluid injected by the nozzle of a washing | cleaning apparatus.

[Estimation part]
The estimation unit 5 estimates the ejection state for the headlamp based on the contents input by the attachment position setting unit 2 and the three-dimensional shape setting unit 3 and the information stored in the storage unit 4. For example, the estimation unit 5 estimates the injection angle at each boundary point on the boundary line and the region of the lens surface of the headlamp included in the injection area. At this time, the estimation unit 5 estimates the injection angle at each boundary point at a predetermined pitch (predetermined interval) on the boundary line. The predetermined pitch may be determined in advance by the designer or arbitrarily set by the user. In addition, as for the calculation method of the area of the lens surface and the injection angle included in such an injection area, any calculation method that has been actually realized may be applied.

[Display section]
The display unit 6 displays the estimation result by the estimation unit 5 on a display device such as a CRT (Cathode Ray Tube) display, a liquid crystal display, or an organic EL (Electro-Luminescent) display. FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating a display example by the display unit 6. An estimation result by the estimation unit 5 is input to the display unit 6. In other words, the display unit 6 may include an input unit (not shown) for receiving such input. And the display part 6 displays a boundary line using several line types based on this estimation result. The estimation result includes the boundary line and the injection angle.

The display unit 6 displays a region surrounded by the boundary line as a hatched part. This boundary line is a range based on the estimation result of the estimation unit 5. Moreover, the display part 6 displays a boundary line with several line types. This line type is determined based on the estimation result of the injection angle at each boundary point set at a predetermined pitch. For example, a portion where the injection angle is sufficiently good and good (for example, a portion where the injection angle is 15 deg or more: a boundary line represented by a broken line in FIG. 2), a portion where the injection angle is small but a certain amount of cleaning is expected (for example, A portion where the injection angle is 12 deg or more and less than 15 deg: a boundary line represented by a broken line by ▲ in FIG. 2, a portion where the injection angle is too small to perform cleaning sufficiently (for example, a portion where the injection angle is less than 12 deg: FIG. In FIG. 4, the line type assigned to each classification may be displayed based on a classification such as a boundary line represented by a broken line by a cross). Note that this classification is merely an example, and the line type may be determined according to another classification.

  Moreover, the display part 6 may be comprised so that the maximum value and minimum value of the injection angle in the boundary line of a specific range may be displayed. For example, in FIG. 2, the maximum and minimum values from the A end to the B end, the maximum and minimum values from the A end to the C end, and the maximum and minimum values from the B end to the C end are displayed. The The division by the A end, the B end, and the C end is an example, and the boundary line may be divided in other ranges.

[Action / Effect]
According to the component arrangement design apparatus 1 of the present invention, it is possible to easily determine whether or not the arrangement of the cleaning device is appropriate by displaying a boundary line that is an intersection line of the lens surface and the ejection surface of the headlamp. It becomes possible.

  Moreover, according to the component arrangement design apparatus 1 of the present invention, the distribution of the angle between the lens surface and the ejection surface is expressed by a plurality of line types on the boundary line in the headlamp. For this reason, it is not necessary for the user to confirm the injection angle at each boundary point by a sectional view or the like. In other words, it is possible to easily grasp the injection angle by referring to the boundary lines expressed by a plurality of line types displayed by the display unit 6 and determine whether the cleaning apparatus is properly arranged.

[Modification]
The broken line by the above-mentioned figure is an example of a line type, and display may be performed by another line type. For example, the lines may be displayed with lines of different colors, or may be displayed with lines of different thicknesses.

  Further, in the display example of FIG. 2, all the boundary lines are displayed according to their respective line types, but only a part of the boundary lines are displayed so that display using a special line type is performed. The part 6 may be configured. For example, the display unit 6 does not perform display using a special line type for a portion where the injection angle is sufficient and good, and performs display using the special line type only for the other two types of boundary lines. It may be configured. FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a display example by the display unit 6 configured as described above. By being configured in this way, it is possible to make it easier to visually recognize the boundary line to be noted in determining the arrangement of the cleaning device.

  Further, the display unit 6 is configured to be set so as not to display the injection area, the hatched part surrounded by the boundary line, the maximum value and the minimum value of the injection angle in the boundary line of a specific range, by the user's operation. May be.

  Further, the display unit 6 may be configured to display the injection angle at a specific boundary point instead of the injection angle at the boundary line of the specific range. This specific boundary point may be set in advance as a boundary point considered important by the designer, or may be arbitrarily set by the user.

It is a figure which shows the example of the functional block of a component arrangement | positioning design apparatus. It is a figure which shows the example of a display by a display part. It is a figure which shows the example of a display by the display part according to a modification. It is a figure which shows the example of a display by a prior art. It is a figure which shows the example of a display by a prior art.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Parts arrangement design apparatus 2 Mounting position setting part 3 Solid shape setting part 4 Memory | storage part 5 Estimation part 6 Display part

Claims (4)

Storage means for headlamp cleaner stores information about the injection area including a jetting direction you inject fluid into the headlamp,
Mounting position setting means for setting the mounting position of the headlamp cleaner ;
A three-dimensional shape setting means for setting a three-dimensional shape of a headlamp to which a fluid is jetted by the headlamp cleaner ;
Based on the information on the mounting position of the headlamp cleaner and the information on the injection area of the fluid injected from the headlamp cleaner , the injection status of the fluid with respect to the three-dimensional shape of the headlamp is estimated, and the injection status Estimating means for estimating the intersection angle of the outermost contour where the ejection area and the headlamp intersect based on
Display means for displaying the estimated crossing angle Ri by said estimating means,
A component placement design apparatus. The component placement design apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein the display unit displays the outline of the outermost contour using a plurality of line types based on the size of the intersection angle estimated by the estimation unit. To an information processing apparatus and a display means for performing display and memory means for headlamp cleaner stores information about the injection area including a jetting direction you inject fluid into the headlamp,
Setting the mounting position of the headlamp cleaner ;
Setting a three-dimensional shape of a headlamp to which fluid is jetted by the headlamp cleaner ;
Based on the information on the mounting position of the headlamp cleaner and the information on the injection area of the fluid injected from the headlamp cleaner , the injection status of the fluid with respect to the three-dimensional shape of the headlamp is estimated, and the injection status Estimating an intersection angle of an outermost contour at which the ejection area and the headlamp intersect based on :
Displaying the estimated intersection angle on the display means;
A program for running Information processing apparatus including a display means for performing display and memory means for headlamp cleaner stores information about the injection area including a jetting direction you inject fluid into the head lamp,
Setting the mounting position of the headlamp cleaner ;
The information processing apparatus sets a three-dimensional shape of a headlamp to which fluid is jetted by the headlamp cleaner ;
The information processing apparatus, the information mounting position of the headlamp cleaner, on the basis of the information on the injection area of the fluid ejected from the headlamp cleaner, the condition of injection of the fluid with respect to the three-dimensional shape of the headlamp Estimating and estimating an intersection angle of an outermost contour where the injection area and the headlamp intersect based on the injection state ;
The information processing apparatus displaying the estimated intersection angle on the display means;
Display method including.

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