Massively Parallel Computation for Mechanical Manufacturing and Design

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Solid modeling is a critical enabling technology for mechanical CAD/CAM because it provides geometrically complete representations of parts and products, and enables important manufacturing processes to be modeled. Today's industrial systems operate far below the technology's potential because solid modeling requires enormous computing resources, and because current algorithms and representations cannot handle several important applications. This project is designing new implementations of ray-casting representations for the solid models used in mechanical CAD, and extending the models to new applications. New implementations for ray-casting engines are being developed, using both custom hardware and software running on massively parallel machines. Using the new hardware, new applications of ray representations are being explored, including the solution of boundary-value problems, computation of medial axis transforms, methods for representing mechanical tolerances, and representation of solid objects.