ν-CAx: A Research Agenda for Collaborative Computer-Aided Applications

AbstractA dichotomy exists in the engineering design process between 1) product teams organized to engineer products collaboratively, and 2) the single-user architectures inherent in computers and computer-aided design applications (CAx). Selective design authority is typically assigned to individuals within a product team; they become contributors in a serialized design process largely driven by a set of core CAx applications. Unfortunately, single-user serial architectures inhibit concurrent engineering, in spite of the numerous research efforts into product team cooperation, functional constraints, and data/model propagation and transparency. By surveying modern collaborative technologies, including modern internet gaming, and by also demonstrating our own collaborative CAx prototypes, we draw some interesting conclusions as to collaborative limitations. From these conclusions we propose research that will hopefully formalize and focus the multi-user collaborative agenda, including computer and network...

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