Surfaces of many engineering structures, especially, those of ships are commonly made out of either single- or double-curved surfaces to meet functional requirements. The first step in the fabrication process of a three-dimensional design surface is unfolding or flattening the surface, otherwise known as planar development, so that manufacturers can determine the initial flat plate which is required to form the design shape. In this paper, an algorithm for optimal approximated development of a general curved surface, including both single- and double-curved surfaces, is established by minimizing the strain energy of deformation from its planar development to the design surface. The unfolding process is formulated into a constrained nonlinear programming problem, based on the deformation theory and finite element. Constraints are subjected to the characteristics of the fabrication method. And the design surface, or the curved shell plate is subdivided by automatic mesh generation.

As collaborative design and configuration design are of increasing importance in product development, it becomes essential to exchange the feature and parametric CAD models among participants. A history-based parametric method has been proposed and implemented. But each translator which exchanges the feature and parametric information tends to be heavy because to implement duplicated functions such as the identification of the selected geometries, mapping between features which have different attributes. Furthermore. because the history-based parametric translator uses the procedural model as the neutral format, which is the XML macro file, the history-based parametric translators need a geometric modeling kernel to generate an internal explicit geometric model. To ease the problem, we implemented a shared integration platform, the TransCAD. The TransCAD separates translators from the XML macro files. The translators for various CAD systems need to communicate with only the TransCAD. To support the communication with the TransCAD, we exposed the functions of the TransCAD by using the Automation APIs, which is developed by Microsoft. The Automation APIs of the TransCAD consist of the part modeling functions, the data extraction functions, and the utility functions. Each translator uses these functions to translate a parametric CAD model from the sending CAD system into the XML format, or from the in format into the model of the receiving CAD system This paper introduces what the TransCAD is and how it works for the exchange of the feature and parametric models.

This paper presents a method to convert 3D CAD model to an appropriate analysis model using wrap-around, smooth-out and thinning operators that have been originally developed to realize the multi-resolution modeling. Wrap-around and smooth-out operators are used to simplify 3D model, and thinning operator is to reduce the dimension of a target object with simultaneously decomposing the simplified 3D model to 1D or 2D shapes. By using the simplification and dimension-reduction operations in an appropriate way, the user can generate an analysis model that matches specific applications. The advantage of this method is that the user can create optimized analysis models of various simplification levels by selecting appropriate number of detailed features and removing them.

A new operation strategy. which can guarantee the data consistency of engineering information among the various intelligent information systems, is presented for engineering information of bridges, and construction methodology of integrated database is developed to support the strategy. The two core standard techniques are adopted to construct the integrated database. One is the Standard for the Exchange of Product Model Data (STEP) for CAD/CAE information and the other is the Extensible Markup Language(XML) for engineering document information. The former enabler structural engineers to handle the structural details with three-dimensional geometry-based information of bridges, and ACIS solid modeling kernel is employed to develop AutoCAD based application modules. The latter can make document files into data type for web-based application modules which assist end-users to search and retrieve engineering document data. In addition, relaying algorithm is developed to integrate the two different information, e.g. CAD/CAE information and engineering document information. The pilot application modules are also developed, and a case study subjected to the Han-Nam bridge is presented at the end of the paper to illustrate the use of the developed application modules.

This paper introduces a development of an internet based robot on the view of product development for hardware and software convergences. The robot can report moving images of remote places and navigate there autonomously. In addition it can be controlled by remote users through wireless internet. Even the control program for the robot can be updated by the remote users during the regular operation mode. This paper provides a consistent product data model and generic product development processes that can support the development of the robot, a convergence of various hardware and software parts. It also includes discussions and experiences about the development of the convergence product.

Curve tessellation, which generates a sequence of points from a curve, is very important for curves rendering on a computer screen and for NC machining. For the most case the sequence of discrete points is used rather than a continuous curve. This paper deals with a method of tessellation by calculating the maximal deviation of a curve. The maximal deviation condition is introduced to find the point with the maximal chordal deviation on a curve segment. In the previous research a curve tessellation was tried by the subdivision method, that is, a curve is subdivided until the maximal chordal deviation is less than the given tolerance. On the other hand, a curve tessellation by sequential method is tried in this paper, that is, points are generated successively by using the local property of a curve. The sequential method generates relatively much less points than the subdivision method. Besides, the sequential method can generate a sequence of points from a spatial curve by approximation to a planar curve. The proposed method can be applied for high-accuracy curve tessellation and NC tool-path generation.

In collaborative environment, it is necessary that the participants in collaboration should share the same understanding about the semantics of terms. For example, they should know that 'COMPONENT' and 'ITEM' are different word-expressions for the same meaning. In order to handle such problems in information sharing, an information system needs to automatically recognize that the terms have the same semantics. So we develop an algorithm mapping two terms based on their ontological definitions and their similarities. The proposed algorithm consists of four steps: the character matching, the inferencing, the definition comparing and the similarity checking. In the similarity checking step, we consider relation similarity and hierarchical similarity. The algorithm is very primitive, but it shows the possibility of semi-automatic mapping using ontology. In addition, we design a mapping procedure for a mapping system, called SOM (semantic ontology mapper).

Layered manufacturing(LM) is emerging as a new technology that enables the fabrication of three dimensional heterogeneous objects such as Multi-materials and Functionally Gradient Materials (FGMs). Among various types of heterogeneous objects, more attention has recently paid on the fabrication of FGMs because of their potentials in engineering applications. The necessary steps for LM fabrication of FGMs include representation and process planning of material information inside an FGM. This paper introduces a new process planning algorithm that takes into account the processing of material information. The detailed tasks are discretization (i.e., decomposition-based approximation of volume fraction), orientation (build direction selection), and adaptive slicing of heterogeneous objects. In particular, this paper focuses on the discretization process that converts all of the material information inside an FGM into material features like geometric features. It is thus possible to choose an optimal build direction among various pre-selected ones by approximately estimating build time. This is because total build time depends on the complexity of features. This discretization process also allows adaptive slicing of heterogeneous objects to minimize surface finish and material composition error. In addition, tool path planning can be simplified into fill pattern generation. Specific examples are shown to illustrate the overall procedure.