Design the Future 2: Enabling Design Re-use through Predictive CAD

工程设计工作通常包括重用、配置和组装现有组件、解决方案和知识。有人认为，超过75%的设计活动包括重用以前存在的知识。然而，尽管设计重用活动的重要性，研究人员估计，69%的公司没有系统的方法来防止“车轮的再造”。支持设计重用的主要问题是提供部分重用以前的设计以满足新需求的解决方案。虽然3D搜索技术的目的是创造“一个谷歌的3D形状”已经增加了能力和速度超过十年，他们还没有找到广泛的应用，并已被称为“一个解决方案寻找一个问题”！这个项目的动机是相信，与一种新型的用户界面，三维搜索可以解决设计重用problem.The系统，这项研究的目的是生产类似于移动的手机的文本消息系统。在移动的手机上，“预测文本”系统通过将片段与以前消息中使用的字典或短语进行匹配来完成单词或短语。类似地，“预测CAD”系统将使用“形状搜索”技术来完成3D模型，以交互方式将部分CAD特征与组件数据库进行匹配。以这种方式，系统将向用户提示完成或扩展由用户添加的几何形状的3D组件的片段。这样一个系统可以潜在的提高设计生产率，使重用已建立的设计一个有效的一部分，工程design.Although功能为基础的检索组件从数据库中的3D组件已经证明了许多研究人员到目前为止的系统报告已经相对缓慢，无法成为一个交互式设计系统的组成部分。然而，最近在子图匹配算法的突破，使新一代的形状检索算法的出现，再加上多核硬件，现在足够快，以支持交互式的，预测性的设计界面。该提案旨在研究一个假设，即“预测CAD”系统将允许工程师更有效地设计新的组件，包括建立，或标准，功能或制造几何形状。这将在大型或分布式工程组织中找到商业应用。该项目是数据挖掘如何潜在地用于提高设计生产力的一个例子，因为即使是小型工程公司也会有数百兆字节的CAD数据，“预测CAD”系统将有效地进行模式匹配。

Engineering Design work typically consists of reusing, configuring, and assembling of existing components, solutions and knowledge. It has been suggested that more than 75% of design activity comprises reuse of previously existing knowledge.However in spite of the importance of design reuse activities researchers have estimated that 69% of companies have no systematic approaches to preventing the "reinvention of the wheel". The major issue for supporting design re-use is providing solutions that partially re-use previous designs to satisfy new requirements. Although 3D Search technologies that aim to create "a Google for 3D shapes" have been increasing in capability and speed for over a decade they have not found widespread application and have been referred to as "a solution looking for a problem"! This project is motivated by the belief that, with a new type of user interface, 3D search could be the solutions to the design reuse problem.The system this research is aiming to produce is analogous to the text message systems of mobile phones. On mobile phones 'Predictive text' systems complete words or phrases by matching fragments against dictionaries or phrases used in previous messages. Similarly a 'predictive CAD' system would complete 3D models using 'shape search' technology to interactively match partial CAD features against component databases. In this way the system would prompt the users with fragments of 3D components that complete, or extend, geometry added by the user. Such a system could potential increase design productivity by making the reuse of established designs an efficient part of engineering design.Although feature based retrieval of components from databases of 3D components has been demonstrated by many researchers so far the systems reported have been relatively slow and unable to be components of an interactive design system. However recent breakthroughs in sub-graph matching algorithms have enabled the emergence of a new generation of shape retrieval algorithms, which coupled with multi-core hardware, are now fast enough to support interactive, predictive design interfaces. This proposal aims to investigate the hypothesis that a "Predictive CAD" system would allow engineers to more effectively design new components that incorporate established, or standard, functional or manufacturing geometries. This would find commercial applications within large or distributed engineering organizations.This project is an example of how data mining could potentially be employed to increase design productivity because even small engineering companies will have many hundreds of megabytes of CAD data that a "Predictive CAD" system would effectively pattern match against.