An Agent-Based CAD Framework for Pay-for-Use Design

An agent-based framework was proposed for pay-for-use design applications. Under the framework 3D CAD models become commodities independent of the CAD systems in which they are created. In this way a user can easily shop around the Internet for the 3D models without the cost of purchasing or maintaining CAD software. In the paper the architecture of the framework was provided first. Secondly a procedural modeling algorithm which enables the framework to create the neural model according to functional and/or structural inputs specified by the user was presented. Then a model mapping method was advanced to translate the neural model to a set of CAD modeling API’s. Finally two practical examples were illustrated, which showed the feasibility of the methodology presented in the paper.