A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK FOR SOFTWARE DEVELOPING IN MECHANICAL CAD

SOFTWARE DEPARTMENT

A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK FOR SOFTWARE DEVELOPING IN MECHANICAL CAD

OBJECTIVE

This research work focuses on modern development trends for mechanical CAD software and on important sides of CAD:

using different knowledge in problem solving;
using different methodologies: CAD, PAD (Pencil Aided Design), MAD (Model Aided Design);
using different software environments for developing CAD software.

DESCRIPTION OF PROJECT

A number of varied technologies have arisen to support complex jobs for CAD. We have used an AI based software engineering over ten years. In developing a set of software packages for mechanical design the following ideology has been used:

every program package from a certain application area has a simplified method of use (in addition to a method overloaded with thousand trifles);
the additional data for a package (constraints, terms etc.) are described in the manual of the package or in the HELP-subsystem of the package;
all the packages are integrated and the user interface of different packages has similar syntax and graphical facilities;
for development of packages we have used AI-based software environments ExpertPRIZ (for PC) and NUT (for SUN workstations).

Our efforts in developing CAD software in mechanics are concentrated in two directions: to develop a set of program packages for an automated workplace of a mechanics designer and to compose a new design textbook on machine elements design.

PARTNERS

We have long term co-operation with department of teleinformatics (Prof. Enn Tõugu) of Royal University of Technology, Stockholm.

09/04/1998 monika@cs.ioc.ee