Development of 2D casting process CAD system based on PDF/image files

A casting process CAD is put forward to design and draw casting process. The 2D casting process CAD, most of the current systems are developed based on one certain version of the AutoCAD system. However the application of these 2D casting process CAD systems in foundry enterprises are restricted because they have several deficiencies, such as being overly dependent on the AutoCAD system, and some part files based on PDF format can not be opened directly. To overcome these deficiencies, for the first time an innovative 2D casting process CAD system based on PDF and image format file has been proposed, which breaks through the traditional research and application notion of the 2D casting process CAD system based on AutoCAD. Several key technologies of this system such as coordinate transformation, CAD interactive drawing, file storage, PDF and image format files display, and image recognition technologies were described in detail. A practical 2D CAD casting process system named HZCAD2D(PDF) was developed, which is capable of designing and drawing the casting process on the part drawing based on the PDF format directly, without spending time on drawing the part produced by AutoCAD system. Finally, taking two actual castings as examples, the casting processes were drawn using this system, demonstrating that this system can significantly shorten the cycle of casting process designing.