Automated Conflict Avoidance in Multi-user CAD

The NSF Center for e-Design, Brigham Young University (BYU) site has re-architected Computer Aided Design (CAD) tools enabling multiple users to concurrently create, modify and view the same CAD part or assembly. This technology allows engineers, designers and manufacturing personnel to simultaneously contribute to the design of a part or assembly in real time, enabling parallel work environments within the CAD system. Such systems are only as robust as their methods for managing conflicts (i.e. simultaneous edits of the same feature by multiple users). A heavy-handed conflict prevention would limit collaborative freedom. This paper discusses an automated feature reservation method which prevents multiple users from simultaneously editing the same feature. The method is implemented in a commercial CAD system. Results show that this methodology prevents data inconsistency that results from feature/self conflicts. This system prevents CAD modeling conflicts, while providing an agile user experience within the collaborative environment.

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