New Extended Concept for the Usage of Engineering Objects and Product Properties in the Virtual Product Generation Process

In this approach, a formalism is presented to overcome the geometrically preoccupied engineering thinking in the virtual product design process by concentration on processes of Engineering Objects. The Product Properties are the base of this Engineering Object understanding. It is distinguished between the description of an Engineering Object given by a set of its properties, which always are linked to the context and to the persons involved, and the representations of an Engineering Object, like a model, a picture, a drawing, a CAD file, or even the real physical part itself. Apart from the last, all other representations are only images/abstractions from the reality, which depend highly on the specially considered process step, that means on the "Context" and on the people involved in it. The objective of the approach is to capture the product (in some granularity) together with the process and also together with the persons involved: the designer, the engineer, the manager, the end-user, the sales man, etc. This approach has the potential to support modern product development methodologies like Engineering in Reverse. The proposed concept for the usage of Engineering Objects and Product Properties in the virtual product generation process will be developed and verified following the Aesthetic Design sub-process within a generalised product generation process. Concrete application examples will be presented. But the outlined basic ideas open the option for applications in various other fields of design.