A design platform for the NELSIS CAD framework

A design platform is a central user interface to a CAD framework. It enables information retrieval, object selection, and tool activation in a uniform and integrated fashion. A description is given of such a design platform with emphasis on the graphical metadesign data-browsing facilities. The design platform informs designers about the latest developments of their designs and simplifies interaction with the design system. It enables designers to concentrate more on their main task of electronics design, resulting in better designs and increased productivity. Although the design platform presented has been implemented on top of the NELSIS CAD framework, the ideas and concepts can be used in a variety of applications where data of interest to end users are maintained by a framework.<<ETX>>