Data enhancement for sharing of ship design models

Within a shipyard, many designers each having their own design objective co operate in a complex design situation where a variety of software tools run on different hardware platforms. The exchange of design data models among these heterogeneous CAD systems is a difficult task because the systems inv olved have different data structures optimized for their own functions. CAD geometric models are represented by different schemes such as 2D graphic e ntities, 3D wireframe, 3D surface model, and solid B-Rep/CSG model. A data exchange usually requires topological modifications of CAD data. This paper presents a strategy of CAD data enhancement for the purpose of data exchan ge that includes topological changes of geometric models. As a practical ex ample, a shipbuilding product model with shipbuilding features is implement ed according to the STEP methodology. Its geometric data is enhanced throug h a non-manifold modeler to a data set valuable to downstream applications such as a FEM solver or a detail design system. The ACIS modeler that suppo rts a non-manifold data structure is used for low-level geometric operation s. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.