Assembly Retrieval in Top-down Product Design

Nowadays, there are abundant product models in existence that contain plenty of design knowledge in various disciplines. As an approach to taking full advantages of the existing design knowledge, model reuse plays a more and more important role in complex product design due to the enormous time and cost saving it could bring. To help designers find the right models for reuse quickly and exactly, the content-based assembly retrieval is a promising but still immature way at present. In this paper we present a novel assembly interface representation which captures much more design knowledge in assembly interfaces than plain geometric-matings used most in current CAD models. Then the hierarchical assembly descriptor based on the presented assembly interface representation is described and compared to assembly descriptors in other work. Furthermore, the corresponding similarity assessment method is given to evaluate the distances among assemblies and a complete assembly retrieval method is also described. Finally, an assembly retrieval prototype system is implemented, based on which assembly search samples are analyzed to demonstrate the improved effectiveness brought into the assembly retrieval.

[1]  Julian R. Ullmann,et al.  An Algorithm for Subgraph Isomorphism , 1976, J. ACM.

[2]  W. Gao,et al.  Multiresolutional similarity assessment and retrieval of solid models based on DBMS , 2006, Comput. Aided Des..

[3]  Yutaka Nomaguchi,et al.  Formalizing and Building Knowledge Management System for Computer-aided Engineering Analysis and Design Verification , 2010 .

[4]  Hitoshi Tokunaga,et al.  A component-based software generator for end-user development and design support systems , 2010 .

[5]  Satyandra K. Gupta,et al.  Machining feature-based similarity assessment algorithms for prismatic machined parts , 2006, Comput. Aided Des..

[6]  Satyandra K. Gupta,et al.  Content-Based Search Techniques for Searching CAD Databases , 2006 .

[7]  Mario Vento,et al.  Thirty Years Of Graph Matching In Pattern Recognition , 2004, Int. J. Pattern Recognit. Artif. Intell..

[8]  Soonhung Han,et al.  Protection of intellectual property based on a skeleton model in product design collaboration , 2009, Comput. Aided Des..

[9]  Jerry Y. H. Fuh,et al.  Toward Effective Mechanical Design Reuse: CAD Model Retrieval Based on General and Partial Shapes , 2009 .

[10]  Thomas G. Gunn.  The Mechanization of Design and Manufacturing. , 1982 .

[11]  Karthik Ramani,et al.  Three-dimensional shape searching: state-of-the-art review and future trends , 2005, Comput. Aided Des..

[12]  Ram D. Sriram,et al.  Content-based assembly search: A step towards assembly reuse , 2008, Comput. Aided Des..

[13]  Yusheng Liu,et al.  Semantic-based partial retrieval of CAD models for design reuse , 2009, Symposium on Solid and Physical Modeling.

[14]  Kunwoo Lee,et al.  A hierarchical data structure for representing assemblies: part I , 1985 .

[15]  A. I. Llewelyn.  Review of CAD/CAM , 1989 .

[16]  Abhijit Deshmukh.  CONTENT BASED SEARCH OF MECHANICAL ASSEMBLIES , 2006 .

[17]  M. Mäntylä.  A modeling system for top-down design of assembled products , 1990 .

[18]  Paul C. Xirouchakis,et al.  Container spaces and functional features for top-down 3D layout design , 2002, Comput. Aided Des..

[19]  Mario Vento,et al.  A (sub)graph isomorphism algorithm for matching large graphs , 2004, IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence.