Reconstruction of 3D models from simplified and hierarchical 2D drawings of products

Recently solid modelers have become popular CAD systems. However, there are many 2D drawings and 2D CAD users. In recent solid modelers, the conversion of 2D drawings to solid models is operated manually although the operation becomes difficult and time consuming as the 2D drawings become complex. Many methods have been proposed for the automatic conversion but their targets are always one object and they almost ignore simplified and/or hierarchical expressions in 2D drawings because they are only interested in geometric conversions. As a result, those methods have not been practical. In this paper, an original method is proposed that can automatically convert 2D assembly drawings including simplified and hierarchical expressions to 3D assembly models. This method utilizes dimensions and parts lists in 2D drawings. Simplified conversion can be realized by using the information and almost a single solution can be output regardless of the complexity in 2D drawings.