CAD Assembly Retrieval and Browsing

This paper presents a method for the retrieval and inspection of similar CAD assemblies in a database according to a user query. The method exploits the information on components’ shape and relationships (e.g. contacts and regular patterns) automatically extracted from the STEP descriptions of CAD assemblies and stored in the so-called Enriched Assembly Model. It evaluates the similarity among assemblies in terms of the components’ shapes and joints. A graphical interface highlighting the elements in the assembly similar to the query has been developed to facilitate the inspection of the obtained results

Regular patterns of repeated elements in CAD assembly model retrieval

A multitude of online repositories and a large amount of specific CAD model databases are currently available. Therefore, it is crucial to have access to these data in an easy and in a multi-perspective manner according to multiple access keys, not only in terms of annotation data or shape similarity, but also in terms of specific characteristics. In this perspective, this paper proposes a multi-level approach for CAD assembly model retrieval, which exploits assembly specific information related not only to the shape of the constituting components but also to peculiar assembly information, such as kinematic joints and component arrangements. In many cases, most of this information is not explicitly stored, thus tools for its extraction must be provided. In this paper, we focus on the detection of regular patterns of repeated elements in CAD assemblies and on their exploitation for the browsing and retrieval of assembly models

Design reuse research : a computational perspective

This paper gives an overview of some computer based systems that focus on supporting engineering design reuse. Design reuse is considered here to reflect the utilisation of any knowledge gained from a design activity and not just past designs of artefacts. A design reuse process model, containing three main processes and six knowledge components, is used as a basis to identify the main areas of contribution from the systems. From this it can be concluded that while reuse libraries and design by reuse has received most attention, design for reuse, domain exploration and five of the other knowledge components lack research effort

Using IODyne: Illustrations and Examples

"IODyne (pronounced ""iodine"") is an Internet client program that allows one to retrieve information from servers by dynamically combining information objects. Information objects are abstract representations of bibliographic data, typically titles (or title keywords), author names, subject and classification identifiers, and full-text search terms. IODyne is being developed as part of a library research project, and so the emphasis on bibliographic data. The retrieval paradigm described here can be extended to other kinds of data as well."published or submitted for publicatio

CAD assembly descriptors for knowledge capitalization and model retrieval

Today, there exists a huge amount of digital data easily downloadable from Internet and/or simply accessible from large databases. Despite this rise, the methods to retrieve and search for specific data have not been sufficiently studied and developed, notably when considering 3D contents. Thus, it is sometime more efficient to define new 3D shapes starting from scratch rather than to try to make use of existing ones hardly identifiable within those databases. This is particularly true when considering CAD assembly models often resulting from a long and time-consuming modeling phase within the Product Development Process. Thus, having new methods, models and tools to capitalize, retrieve and reuse CAD assembly models would help saving a lot of time. This paper addresses such a difficult problem of finding a method to characterize and structure CAD assemblies so as to be able to search for similar ones. A framework has been designed for the retrieval of globally and/or partially similar assembly mod- els according to different user-specified search criteria. It is based on an assembly descriptor, called the Enriched Assembly Model (EAM), which encodes all the required data automatically extracted from the geometry and structure of the CAD models. The data are organized in several layers thus enabling multi-level structuring and queries. It also allows fuzzy queries, which can be further refined

Research on the key technologies of web parts library in product configuration system

AbstractIn order to build a web-based parts library for the product configuration system, the data description norm, web browsing and application methods are researched. An ontology based data description norm is used to build the web parts library, with the help of product family and the article characteristic table. A plug-in file of Autovue is adapted for web-based browsing and interaction of geometric models of parts. The schema of Application Services Provider is used to realize the application of web parts library in the product configuration system. Empirical results show that the methods are feasible. And the library has been shown to illustrate the concept. The ontology based data description norm can solve the standardization problem. The plug-in file can show the online 3D demo of parts. And the application of ASP can help more companies to use the web parts library. These technologies help to build and use the library