• International Journal of CAD/CAM
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.1-16
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• 2010

When Deterministic Design Optimization (DDO) methods are used, deterministic optimum designs are frequently pushed to the design constraint boundary, leaving little or no room for tolerances (or uncertainties) in design, manufacture, and operating processes. In the Reliability-Based Design Optimization (RBDO) model for robust system design, the mean values of uncertain system variables are usually used as design variables, and the cost is optimized subject to prescribed probabilistic constraints as defined by a nonlinear mathematical programming problem. Therefore, a RBDO solution that reduces the structural weight in uncritical regions does not only provide an improved design but also a higher level of confidence in the design. In this work, we seek to improve the quality of RBDO processes using efficient optimization techniques with object of improving the resulting objective function and satisfying the required constraints. Our recent RBDO developments show its efficiency and applicability in this context. So we present some recent structural engineering applications demonstrate the efficiency of these developed RBDO methods.

• International Journal of CAD/CAM
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.111-120
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• 2010

In this paper, we propose a volume rendering method using grid computing for large-scale volume data. Grid computing is attractive because medical institutions and research facilities often have a large number of idle computers. A large-scale volume data is divided into sub-volumes and the sub-volumes are rendered using grid computing. When using grid computing, different computers rarely have the same processor speeds. Thus the return order of results rarely matches the sending order. However order is vital when combining results to create a final image. Job-Scheduling is important in grid computing for volume rendering, so we use an obstacle-flag which changes priorities dynamically to manage sub-volume results. Obstacle-Flags manage visibility of each sub-volume when line of sight from the view point is obscured by other subvolumes. The proposed Dynamic Job-Scheduling based on visibility substantially increases efficiency. Our Dynamic Job-Scheduling method was implemented on our university's campus grid and we conducted comparative experiments, which showed that the proposed method provides significant improvements in efficiency for large-scale volume rendering.

• Journal of Computational Design and Engineering
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• v.2 no.3
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• pp.183-194
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• 2015

This paper proposes a novel method for visualizing the thickness and clearance of 3D objects in a polyhedral representation. The proposed method uses the distance field of the objects in the visualization. A parallel algorithm is developed for constructing the distance field of polyhedral objects using the GPU. The distance between a voxel and the surface polygons of the model is computed many times in the distance field construction. Similar sets of polygons are usually selected as close polygons for close voxels. By using this spatial coherence, a parallel algorithm is designed to compute the distances between a cluster of close voxels and the polygons selected by the culling operation so that the fast shared memory mechanism of the GPU can be fully utilized. The thickness/clearance of the objects is visualized by distributing points on the visible surfaces of the objects and painting them with a unique color corresponding to the thickness/clearance values at those points. A modified ray casting method is developed for computing the thickness/clearance using the distance field of the objects. A system based on these algorithms can compute the distance field of complex objects within a few minutes for most cases. After the distance field construction, thickness/clearance visualization at a near interactive rate is achieved.

• Journal of Computational Design and Engineering
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• v.2 no.3
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• pp.148-156
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• 2015

Increased competitive challenges are forcing companies to find better ways to bring their applications to market faster. Distributed development environments can help companies improve their time-to-market by enabling parallel activities. Although, such environments still have their limitations in real-time communication and real-time collaboration during the product development process. This paper describes a web-based collaborative framework which has been developed to support the decision making on a 3D design developing process. The paper describes 3D design file for the discussion that contains all relevant annotations on its surface and their visualization on the user interface for design changing. The framework includes a native CAD data converting module, 3D data based real-time communication module, revision control module for 3D data and some sub-modules such as data storage and data management. We also discuss some raised issues in the project and the steps underway to address them.

• International Journal of CAD/CAM
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.29-36
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• 2009

Domain mapping is a bijective transformation of one domain to another, usually from a complicated general domain to a chosen convex domain. This is directly useful in many application problems like shape modeling, morphing, texture mapping, shape matching, remeshing, path planning etc. A new approach considering the domain as made up of structural elements, like membranes or trusses, is developed and implemented using the nonlinear finite element formulation. The mapping is performed in two stages, boundary mapping and inside mapping. The boundary of the 3-D domain is mapped to the surface of a convex domain (in this case, a sphere) in the first stage and then the displacement/distortion of this boundary is used as boundary conditions for mapping the interior of the domain in the second stage. This is a general method and it develops a bijective mapping in all cases with judicious choice of material properties and finite element analysis. The consistent global parameterization produced by this method for an arbitrary genus zero closed surface is useful in shape modeling. Results are convincing to accept this finite element structural approach for domain mapping as a good method for many purposes.

• International Journal of CAD/CAM
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.21-28
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• 2009

In the present work, an attempt has been made to construct branching surface from 2-D contours, which are given at different layers and may have branches. If a layer having more than one contour and corresponds to contour at adjacent layers, then it is termed as branching problem and approximated by adding additional points in between the layers. Firstly, the branching problem is converted to single contour case in which there is no branching at any layer and the final branching surface is obtained by skinning. Contours are constructed from the given input points at different layers by energy-based B-Spline approximation. 3-D curves are constructed after adding additional points into the contour points for all the layers having branching problem by using energy-based B-Spline formulation. Final 3-D surface is obtained by skinning 3-D curves and 2-D contours. There are three types of branching problems: (a) One-to-one, (b) One-to-many and (c) Many-to-many. Oneto-one problem has been done by plethora of researchers based on minimizations of twist and curvature and different tiling techniques. One-to-many problem is the one in which at least one plane must have more than one contour and have correspondence with the contour at adjacent layers. Many-to-many problem is stated as m contours at i-th layer and n contours at (i+1)th layer. This problem can be solved by combining one-to-many branching methodology. Branching problem is very important in CAD, medical imaging and geographical information system(GIS).

• International Journal of CAD/CAM
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.1-10
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• 2009

This paper presents a topology optimization approach using element-free Galerkin method (EFGM) for the optimal design of compliant mechanisms with geometrically non-linearity. Meshless method has an advantage over the finite element method(FEM) because it is more capable of handling large deformation resulted from geometrical nonlinearity. Therefore, in this paper, EFGM is employed to discretize the governing equations and the bulk density field. The sensitivity analysis of the optimization problem is performed by incorporating the adjoint approach with the meshless method. The Lagrange multipliers method adjusted for imposition of both the concentrated and continuous essential boundary conditions in the EFGM is proposed in details. The optimization mathematical formulation is developed to convert the multi-criteria problem to an equivalent single-objective problem. The popularly applied interpolation scheme, solid isotropic material with penalization (SIMP), is used to indicate the dependence of material property upon on pseudo densities discretized to the integration points. A well studied numerical example has been applied to demonstrate the proposed approach works very well and the non-linear EFGM can obtain the better topologies than the linear EFGM to design large-displacement compliant mechanisms.

• Journal of Computational Design and Engineering
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.79-87
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• 2015

Surface segmentation and edge feature lines extraction from fractured fragments of relics are essential steps for computer assisted restoration of fragmented relics. As these fragments were heavily eroded, it is a challenging work to segment surface and extract edge feature lines. This paper presents a novel method to segment surface and extract edge feature lines from triangular meshes of irregular fractured fragments. Firstly, a rough surface segmentation is accomplished by using a clustering algorithm based on the vertex normal vector. Secondly, in order to differentiate between original and fracture faces, a novel integral invariant is introduced to compute the surface roughness. Thirdly, an accurate surface segmentation is implemented by merging faces based on face normal vector and roughness. Finally, edge feature lines are extracted based on the surface segmentation. Some experiments are made and analyzed, and the results show that our method can achieve surface segmentation and edge extraction effectively.

• Journal of Computational Design and Engineering
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.88-95
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• 2015

Recently, fiber composite materials have been attracting attention from industry because of their remarkable material characteristics, including light weight and high stiffness. However, the costs of products composed of fiber materials remain high because of the lack of effective manufacturing and designing technologies. To improve the relevant design technology, this paper proposes a novel simulation method for deforming fiber materials. Specifically, given a 3D model with constant thickness and known fiber orientation, the proposed method simulates the deformation of a model made of thick fiber-material. The method separates a 3D sheet model into two surfaces and then flattens these surfaces into two dimensional planes by a parameterization method with involves cross vector fields. The cross vector fields are generated by propagating the given fiber orientations specified at several important points on the 3D model. Integration of the cross vector fields gives parameterization with low-stretch and low-distortion.

• Journal of Computational Design and Engineering
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.91-101
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• 2016

The automated part quality inspection poses many challenges to the engineers, especially when the part features to be inspected become complicated. A large quantity of part inspection at a faster rate should be relied upon computerized, automated inspection methods, which requires advanced quality control approaches. In this context, this work uses innovative methods in remote part tracking and quality control with the aid of the modern equipment and application of support vector machine (SVM) learning approach to predict the outcome of the quality control process. The classifier equations are built on the data obtained from the experiments and analyzed with different kernel functions. From the analysis, detailed outcome is presented for six different cases. The results indicate the robustness of support vector classification for the experimental data with two output classes.