Geometric shape abstractions for Internet-based virtual prototyping

Virtual prototyping (VP) typically involves analyzing computer aided design (CAD) models for different end applications such as manufacturability or assemblability analysis. Such analyses may be performed via the aid of expert system agents which could be residing in a distributed fashion on the Internet. Each expert system agent/module requires CAD information at a certain level of geometric abstraction and outputs the analysis at a different level of abstraction. Therefore, a basis is needed to define these different levels of geometric abstraction. The current paper defines and analyzes these different levels of geometric abstraction in the context of an architecture for achieving VP via a central broker that interacts with these different modules-each providing a different level of abstraction. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.