AUTOMATED FEATURE VALIDATION FOR CREATING EDITING FEATURE-BASED COMPONENT DATA MODELS/

In a feature-based design system, it is necessary to check if a featur e is valid (i.e. dimensions and class are proper) before adding it to the component model, and to detect if there will be any changes in the existing features which interact with it. The same applies to an exis ting feature to be modified and its interacting features when editing a feature model. This ensures a precise feature model of component des ign for the downstream applications. It is a commendable goal to autom ate the process of feature validation, which in turn increases the sys tem's capability and intelligence, thus reducing the requirement on th e designer's effort. This paper presents a Boolean operation-based sys tematic methodology of automating feature validation by checking featu re dimensions and class, respectively. It briefly introduces a feature -based component data model (FBCDM) suitable for process planning and NC programming, and then discusses in detail the problem of feature va lidation and the algorithms of feature validation for creating/editing FBCDMs.