An integrated environment for product development using STEP/EXPRESS

The ISO STEP specifications aim to provide an effective means by which product information can be shared and exchanged between applications and enterprises. EXPRESS is a modeling language within the STEP specifications. It is used to describe product data, An EXPRESS model can be implemented on a database repository, queried upon and manipulated. This paper presents a software development platform which assists designers to create EXPRESS models, to generate an equivalent database schema and to manipulate this schema. The designer can create an initial EXPRESS model using EXPRESS-G. EXPRESS code is then generated and further editing undertaken using a specialized EXPRESS editor. The designer can also Visualize the inheritance hierarchy of the complete schema. The EXPRESS schema is converted to an object-oriented database system and accessed via a STEP Data Access Interface (SDAI). The paper describes each component of the development platform and also examines possible enhancements.