DEVELOPMENT OF VERSATILE LIBRARY OF PART MODELS FOR CAD APPLYING CLOUD TECHNOLOGIES

Abstract

Libraries of part models play a significant role in engineering software and are frequently used for designing mechanical components. They provide access to existing layouts with the ability to set specified dimensions. Such an approach makes it possible to simplify the product design and construction work, because most of the parts are standardized, and the developer has only to customize settings correctly and to combine separate parts into a single mechanism. Among the existing approaches to creating libraries of ready-made 3D parts for designing mechanical systems new trends are emerging and developing, in particular three-dimensional parametric modelling, design based on the description of the information model, reverse engineering, distributed systems and web services as well as iterative design and evolutionary optimization methods. However, the problem of cross-platform compatibility and general unhindered user access to existing layouts remains unresolved. Considering that the structure of the part model library should provide remote access to data, parameter configuration methodology for determining object sizes and support distributed processes for exchanging information and ready-made layouts between users, software platform for creating the service is built using cloud technologies. Existing cloud applications can be divided into three cloud provider service models: Infrastructure-as-a-Service, Platform-as-a-Service and Software as a Service. It was decided to implement parts library software in a cloud environment, which is serviced within platform as a service scheme, since this approach allows to use all available functionality for designing elements from a remote server. Three-dimensional modelling of parts is carried out based on the software core of 3D ACIS Modeler, which provides surface, framing and solid design tools for creating geometric layouts in many mechanical CAD systems. In order to maintain compatibility between different CAD software packages, an InterOP interface is used, such as Intergraph Smart Interop Publisher, which is appropriate for combining and processing 3D models from a large number of CAD platforms into a single format. Therefore, consistency when using materials from multiple sources is ensured and the ability to reuse existing geometric, structural and logical information at the editing stage is provided.