A collaborative environment based on distributed object-oriented databases

The need for developing an open CAD environment has never been greater. One of the most critical problems involved in this is the integration of already existing CAD systems into a collaborative environment. Also, the resulting open CAD system has to deal with heterogeneous environments and various different data formats, In this paper we describe a collaborative working Virtual Prototyping (VP) environment which integrates already existing CAD systems. The underlying product model of the VP environment is a STEP (Standard for the Exchange and the Representation of Product Model Data)-based integrated product model. The paper also describes how collaborative working is achieved in the VP environment using an object-oriented data management approach. The data management module is used to distribute data in the collaborative environment and to integrate both the system and data. Finally, the paper describes the concurrency requirements of the applications integrated into the VP environment and recommends a concurrency control protocol.