Abstract
During early stages of design, the mere presence of items, their relative positioning, and their interrelationships can be more significant than fine details, like exact dimensions, whether a hole is counterbored, or the exact cross-sectional shape of a groove. Most CAD systems have little, if any, support for this critical, incipient design stage, In addressing this economically compelling and highly leveraged area, we present an intuitive, feature-based approach to 3-D design which permits a complete first pass through the design-manufacturing cycle even before a detailed specification is complete. We report a functioning 3-D design front-end for a solid modeling system that has been used for fast intra-part and inter-part, visual, generalized feature specification, a frontend that is intimately connected to the system so that both visual and detailed design can be carried out concurrently on the same model to meet designer needs.
Hence, the design that is “captured” during the sketch and modify phase using this approach is fully usable for activities that traditionally require a fully detailed solid model, such as rendering, finite element and other analysis, assembly analysis, process planning, and manufacturing at this initial stage instead of the traditionally late stages.