CAREER: Parallel GPU Analysis for Real-Time Manufacturability

该学院早期职业发展(CALEAR)项目支持对几何可制造性反馈的新技术和算法的研究，这些技术和算法有望在现有方法的基础上实现数量级的速度改进。所提出的算法将利用标准PC上的图形处理单元(GPU)作为并行协处理器的能力，从而向设计者提供连续、实时的可制造性反馈。主要的焦点将放在造型和铸造的可达性分析上。PI将设计和实施实时算法，分析零件几何形状，识别增加成本和降低质量的特征，并指导设计师选择更好的替代方案。综合教育计划将以这项工作为基础，为本科教育和K-12推广开发用于可制造性反馈和虚拟现实(VR)制造视频游戏的CAD插件，并将开发应用于机械设计和制造的GPU编程研究生课程。如果成功，对于工业来说，该项目有可能通过改善对设计师的制造反馈来缩短上市时间和降低成本。今天的产品设计师对最终将用于实现他们的设计的制造过程缺乏第一手经验，因为如此多的制造正在向海外转移；将制造专业知识融入这个项目中的设计软件将有助于保持国内工程设计的竞争力。在教育和推广方面，插件和VR视频游戏将同时提高学生的空间推理能力，以及对为制造而设计的原则以及对能源和水使用的“绿色”考虑的认识。新的研究生课程将介绍几何设计和制造的跨学科方法。GPU加速算法极大地提高可制造性计算速度的潜力的展示，可能会从根本上改变计算机辅助设计、计算机辅助制造和计算机辅助工程系统的构建方式。

This Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) project supports the research into new techniques and algorithms for geometric manufacturability feedback that are expected to achieve orders-of-magnitude improvements in speed over existing approaches. The proposed algorithms will exploit the ability of graphics processing units (GPUs) on standard PCs to act as parallel co-processors, thus providing continuous, real-time manufacturability feedback to designers. A main focus will be on accessibility analysis for molding and casting. The PI will design and implement real-time algorithms that analyze part geometry, identifying features that increase cost and reduce quality, and guiding the designer towards better alternatives. The integrated education plan will draw upon this work to development CAD plug-ins for manufacturability feedback and virtual reality (VR) manufacturing video games for undergraduate education and K-12 outreach, and will also feature the development of a graduate course on GPU programming applied to mechanical design and manufacturing.If successful, for industry, this project has the potential to reduce time to market and lower cost through improved manufacturing feedback to designers. Today's product designers have less first-hand experience with the manufacturing processes that will ultimately be used to realize their designs because so much manufacturing is moving offshore; incorporating manufacturing expertise into design software as proposed in this project will help preserve the competitiveness of domestic engineering design. For education and outreach, the plug-ins and VR video games will simultaneously improve students' spatial reasoning skills and awareness of Design For Manufacturing principles and "green" considerations of energy and water use. The new graduate course will introduce interdisciplinary approaches to geometric design and manufacturing. The demonstration of the potential of GPU-accelerated algorithms to dramatically improve the speed of manufacturability calculations could radically alter the ways in which Computer Aided Design, Computer Aided Manufacturing, and ComputerAided Engineering systems are built.