A Direct Feature Retrieval and Reuse Method for Heterogeneous Collaborative CAD Systems

Nowadays a lot of enterprises develop the products collaboratively using heterogeneous CAD systems. Feature based data exchange and interoperation among heterogeneous CAD systems are very important in pervasive computing environments. The key techniques in feature based data exchange are feature retrieval (extraction) and feature reuse (reconstruction). This paper presents a direct approach for feature retrieval and feature reconstruction. At first, most of feature information is directly retrieved by first retrieval mechanism in source systems. Then, the secondary retrieval mechanism acquires related information which can not be retrieved in first retrieval. At last the feature model is reconstructed one by one accurately in target systems by the model reconstruction mechanism.