Re-using 3D modeling data for constructing 3D simulation data

With the aid of the powerful computational ability and software tools, we undergo rapid change in a whole product manufacturing process. In a traditional way, it took long time and cost to build real manufacturing line. The behind time change for the manufacturing process ends up with supplementing large amount of budget. Therefore early detecting the errors on manufacturing process saves quite a big amount of time and money. As a result, the need for plant simulations rises. When we simulate manufacturing line on a virtual environment, it is not easy to acquire 3D data. If we have 3D CAD data, we can reuse them for each tools, products and equipments for the manufacturing line. Even in this case, the size matters. The large size of CAD data makes it difficult for us to directly use CAD data for simulation. As the CAD data and simulation data differs in their own purpose, we can reduce the size of the CAD data without losing simulation purpose. In this paper we propose effective methods for reducing the size of the CAD data and re-using them for simulation, assuming the 3D CAD data are already available.