DESIGN Cloud: The Foundry - Development of a Design Lifecycle Management system and tools

DESIGN Cloud is an eighteen-month project to research and develop tools that help design
professionals to create, manage, visualise and refine their ideas from first sketch through to
final delivery. The project will create, test and demonstrate an open, end-to-end design
pipeline running in the Cloud, with software components and Design Lifecycle Management
(DLM) tools that are compatible with major third-party tools.
Designers work with a wide range of digital tools for the different stages of the process,
working out ideas as initial sketches, visualising them, refining them for production using
CAD, and preparing advertising visuals. At present, all these tools work as separate ‘islands’
making it very hard to track and see changes made at different stages. DESIGN Cloud will
build on methods developed by The Foundry for digital cinema VFX assets to make it easy to
create and transfer both 2D and 3D assets through a design pipeline, and to visualise and
communicate changes between every stage.
The project will result in a Cloud-based ecosystem containing a range of applications,
Design Lifecycle Management tools and a repository of design assets. The apps will be able to
exchange data and metadata with selected third-party software packages through a system of
bridges, and will also be offered as shrink-wrapped products for occasional users who do not
need the full DESIGN Cloud service. The Foundry will exploit the results by subscription
income from Cloud services, software application sales, trading design assets, and technology
licensing to OEM. The Foundry is a world-leading provider of VFX software with a growing
international presence in the design software market.