Geometric modeling architecture for manufacturing-process simulation software

Geometric modeling capabilities are an integral part of any computer-aided design system. Most of these capabilities focus on the final product but do not consider other information needed for supporting downstream applications. Additional product- and process-related information needs to be added to the geometric model. This includes information on functional requirements, process geometry, process planning, engineering analysis, and the specification of analysis attributes to the geometric entities. The National Applied Software Engineering Center (NASEC) is applying object-oriented technology to develop an extensible software architecture for manufacturing-process simulation software that encapsulates this information. This will ensure seamless integration of the geometry model with the numerical model and, as a consequence, will greatly reduce the time for setting up the process simulation. This paper addresses the geometry modeling constructs supported by this architecture, and specifically, the design of an object-oriented, feature-rich, geometric modeling architecture layered on top of the ACIS(TM) Geometric Modeler. The advantages of the design are also addressed.