Sponsors: ONR, NSF
In this research all major aspects of geometric and solid modeling systems are investigated; for example, how to choose suitable representations of objects, how to efficiently implement design operations, and how to drive automatically specific surface elements from very high-level specifications.
We are developing a high-level geometry representation that is feature-based and constraint-based. Ease of design and redesign are the main focus of the work, and we are developing a new architecture for CAD systems. In particular, a new architecture is under development in which the traditional CAD system is federated with downstream processing systems such as manufacturing process planners, geometric dimensioning and tolerancing analysis modules, etc. Here, the focus of the work is to organize the information flow into an object oriented engineering data base, so that the individual clients can collaborate with minimal demands on their internal functionality, and the system coordinates updates impacting a subset of the clients.