Design reusability assessment for effective CAD model retrieval and reuse

Abstract

Many existing designs can be reused to facilitate future developments. However, CAD model reuse is not effectively supported by conventional geometry-based retrieval methods, which rarely consider design reusability during the retrieval. We propose a design reusability assessment method to support retrieval and reuse of CAD models. Firstly, modelling knowledge is extracted to construct Feature dependency Directed Acyclic Graph (FDAG) of archived models. Secondly, these models are progressively simplified based on the design-knowledge-based FDAG. Finally, simplified shapes are compared with inputted 3D queries, to retrieve CAD models by measuring the general shape similarity. A prototype system is realised to show that the proposed method retrieves CAD models based on the design reusability and outperforms geometry-based retrieval methods. Copyright © 2011 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.