The non-manifold geometric modeling technique is to improve design process and to Integrate design, analysis, and manufacturing by handling mixture of wireframe model, surface model, and solid model in a single data structure. For the non-manifold geometric modeling, Euler operators and other high level modeling methods are necessary. Boolean operation is one of the representative modeling method for the non-manifold geometric modeling. This thesis studies Boolean operations of non-manifold model with the data structure of selective storage. The data structure of selective storage is improved non-manifold data structure in that existing non-manifold data structures using ordered topological representation method always store non-manifold information even if edges and vortices are in the manifold situation. To implement Boolean operations for non-manifold model, intersection algorithm for topological cells of three different dimensions, merging and selection algorithm for three dimensional model, and Open Inventor(tm), a 3D toolkit from SGI, are used.

For effective part modifications which is necessary in the design process frequently, variational geometric modeling with constraint management being used in a wide. Most variational geometric modeling methods, however, manage just the constraints about sketch elements used for generation of primitives. Thus, not only constraint propagation but also re-build of various modeling operations stored in the modeling history is necessary iota part geometry modifications. Especially, re-build of high-cost Boolean operations is apt to deteriorate overall modeling efficiency abruptly. Therefore, in this paper we proposed an algorithm that can handle all geometric entities of the part directly. For this purpose, we introduced eight type geometric constraints to the various geometric calculations about all geometric entities in sweepings and Boolean operations as well as the existing constraints of the sketch elements. The algorithm has a merit of rapid part geometric modifications through only constraint propagation without rebuild of modeling operations which are necessary in the existing variational geometric modeling method.

In this study, an exclusive CAD/CAM system is developed for enhancing the effectiveness and productivity of CNC universal cylindrical grinding machines on which the external/facing/internal grinding cycles and the wheel dressing cycles are integratively carried out. The CAD/CAM system can manage the various processes such as geometry design, NC code generation, NC code verification, DNC operation, and so on. Especially, the feature-based modeling concept is introduced to improve the geometry design efficiency. And the NC code verification is realized by virtual manufacturing technique based on the real-time analysis of NC codes and the boolean operation between workpiece and wheel.

Expert systems using uncertain and ambiguous knowledge are not of the recent interests about uncertainty problem for performing inference similar to the decision making of a human expert. Human factors on rule-based systems often involve uncertain information. Expert systems had been used the methods of conflict resolution in a rule conflict situation, but this methods not properly solved the rule conflict. If a human expert appends a new rule to an original rule base, the rule base rightly causes a rule conflict. In this paper, the problem of rule conflict is regarded as one in which uncertainty of information is fundamentally involved. In the reduction of problem with uncertainty, we propose an enhanced rule ordering method, which improve the rule ordering method using Dempster-Shafer theory. We also propose a combinative index, which involve human factors of experts decision making.

The spent fuel rod extracting machine is automatically operated in high radioactive environment, so high reliability of operation is required. In this paper, to enhance the reliability of this machine by providing a close monitoring capability. a real time graphic simulation method is suggested. This method utilizes conventional IGRIP (Interactive Graphics Robot Instruction Program) 3D graphic simulation tool to visualize and simulate the 3D graphic model of this machine. Also, the dedicated protocol is defined for transmission of the operational data of the machine. The real time graphic simulation is realized by developing the socket module between a graphic workstation and a machine control computer through the TCP/IP network and by dividing the 3D graphic simulation GSL(Graphic Simulation Language) program as a small sized sub routine. The suggested method is implemented while automatically operating the rod extracting machine. The result of implementation shows that the real time 3D graphic simulation is well synchronized with the actual machine according to the operational data.

This paper presents a geometric method that can detect and compute all conic sections in the intersection of two tori. Conic sections contained in a torus must be circles. Thus, when two tori intersect in a conic section, the intersection curve must be a circle as well. Circles in a torus are classified into profile circles, cross-sectional circlet, and Yvone-Villarceau circles. Based on a geometric classification of these circles, we present a procedural method that can detect and construct all intersection circles between two tori. All computations can be carried out using simple geometric operations only: e.g., circle-circle intersections, circle-line intersections, vector additions, and inner products. Consequently, this simple structure makes our algorithm robust and efficient, which is an important advantage of our geometric approach over other conventional methods of surface intersection.

The view dependency of typical spatial-partitioning based NC simulation methods is overcome by polygon rendering technique that generates polygons to represent the workpiece, thus enabling dynamic viewing transformations without reconstruction of the entire data structure. However, the polygon rendering technique still has difficulty in realizing real-time simulation due to unsatisfactory performance of current graphics devices. Therefore, it is necessary to develop a mesh decimation method that enables rapid rendering without loss of display quality. In this paper. we proposed a new mesh decimation algorithm thor a workpiece whose shape varies dynamically. In this algorithm, the 2-map data thor a given workpiece is divided into several regions, and a triangular mesh is constructed for each region first. Then, if any region it cut by the tool, its mesh is regenerated and decimated again. Since the range of mesh decimation is confined to a few regions, the reduced polygons for rendering can be obtained rapidly. Our method enables the polygon-rendering based NC simulation to be applied to the computers equipped with a wider range of graphics cards.

Current CAD systems are good enough to be used as a tool to manipulate three-dimensional shapes. This is a very important capability to be owned by a design tool because a major portion of designers'activities is spent on the shape manipulation in the design detailing process. However, the whole design process involves a lot more than the, shape manipulation. Currently, these remaining tasks, mostly logical reasoning process for the function realization together with structure decomposition in the top-down manner, are processed in the designer's brain. To support the top-down functional design process of a mechanical product, a system integrating the functional, structural and geometrical aspects of a product design in a unified environment is presented. Using this system, a designer can perform function decomposition, structure decomposition, and geometry detailing, and function verification activities in parallel and the whole design process it modeled resultantly. Once the whole design process is modeled, any redesign task can be automatically performed with the verification of the desired functions.

This paper deals with the study of distributed design system and the implementation of JAVA based initial design system using CORBA/sup [1-3]/. In the state of initial design, designer should consider other information related to a design part. In this case, designer has a difficult problem to search and calculate distributed data. We propose a special connector named ‘Allocator’and implement an initial design system AIDS(Agent based Initial Design system). AIDS can help designer search and calculate the distributed information. In this study, JAVA and CORBA were chosen for handling network and distribute programming. AIDS focuses on the possibility of incremental concurrent design capability. AIDS is comported of Request-Agent, Calculator-Agent, View-Agent, Search-Agent, and ‘Allocator’. The proposed system can be used for designing initial design of a gripper in the web regardless of operating system.

This paper proposes a qualitative reasoning approach for the spatial configuration of mechanisms that could be applied in the early phase of the conceptual design. The spatial configuration problem addressed in this paper involves the relative direction and position between the input and output motion, and the orientation of the constituent primitive mechanisms of a mechanism. The knowledge of spatial configuration of a primitive mechanism is represented in a matrix form called spatial configuration matrix. This matrix provides a compact and convenient representation scheme for the spatial knowledge, and facilitates the manipulation of the relevant spatial knowledge. Using this spatial knowledge of the constituent primitive mechanisms, the overall configuration of a mechanism is described and identified by a spatial configuration state matrix. This matrix is obtained by using a qualitative reasoning method based on sign algebra and is used to represent the qualitative behavior of the mechanism. The matrix-based representation scheme allows handling the involved spatial knowledge simultaneously and the proposed reasoning method enables the designer to predict the spatial behavior of a mechanism without knowing specific dimension of the components of the mechanism.

Recently 5-axis NC machines are widely used in Korea. Since 5-axis machines have two more degrees of freedom than 3-axis machines, it is very important to find desirable tool positions(locations and orientations) in order to make an efficient use of expensive 5-axis NC machines. In this research an algorithm to determine “optimal” tool positions for 5-axis machining of sculptured surfaces is developed. For given CC(Cutter Contact) points, this algorithm determines the cutter axis vectors which minimize cusp heights and satisfy constraints. To solve the optimal problem, we deal with following major issues: (1) an approximation method of a cusp height as a measure of optimality (2) Identifying some properties of the optimal problem (3) a search method for the optimal points using the properties. By using a polyhedral model as a machining surface, this algorithm applies to sculptured surfaces covering: overhanged surface.