A single representation to support assembly and process planning in feature-based design machined parts

The need for a product model that can support the modelling requirements of a broad range of applications leads to the application of a feature-based model within a computer aided design environment. An important requirement in feature-based design for manufacture is that a single feature representation should be capable of concurrently supporting a number of different applications. Assembly and process planning are seen as two crucial manufacturing applications and a formal structure for their representation in a feature-based design system is presented. This research addresses two basic questions relating to the lack of a unified definition for features and the establishment of a feature-based representation for assembly. Thus the concept of designing with features is extended by incorporating assembly and process planning information with the geometrical and topological details of component parts. A prototype system has been implemented using an object-oriented programming technique which provides a convenient method for adding functionality to the geometric reasoning process of features and the complex relationships between the parts that make up the assembly. The feature-based model is embedded in the ACIS object-oriented solid modeller kernel.