Contracting Agency: U.S. Air Force (USAF)
Point of Contact: technology@kbsi.com

Overview

The high cost of managing legacy engineering drawings in logistics centers, shipyards, and depots emphasizes the magnitude and importance of the legacy data conversion problem. COTS solves some isolated portions of the problem; however, critical voids remain. In this project, we used a systems approach that leveraged existing COTS with four enabling technologies to create a solution that encompassed the complete scope of the legacy data conversion process. As part of this project, we studied legacy data conversion activities at Tinker AFB and, specifically, the activities of Tinker’s Engineering Data Computer Assisted Retrieval System (EDCARS).

The ultimate goal of this project was to develop a knowledge-based engineering drawing conversion architecture to support conversion at multiple levels of abstraction. As a first step in accomplishing this long-term goal, several objectives were identified.

Determine the system architecture with the multiple levels of conversion needed to produce 3D product data in the Standard for the Exchange of Product Data (STEP) from a raster scan of a paper drawing.

Develop the algorithms, design the data representations, and design the user interaction strategies for multiple levels of engineering conversion.

Provide the ability to recover 2D product information by associating drawing symbols and related geometric information.

Provide the ability to construct 3D solids by associating multiple views (i.e., front, top, and side views) of the engineering drawing.

Develop a geometric reasoning engine which provides feature recognition capability.

Legacy Data Conversion - the conversion of millions of engineering drawings that previously were not computer processable (i.e., paper or microfilm) to a computer intelligible format.

CAD/CAM/CAE Systems Integration - the recovery of 3D solid information from engineering drawings to provide an important link in the integration of CAD/CAM/CAE systems.

PDES - Product Data Exchange Using STEP - the generation of data to provide a neutral file for data sharing between computer and software platforms.

a unified, non-manifold representation scheme to model related, coexisting objects of different types (e.g., vectors, characters, wire frames, solids);

a knowledge-based semantics recovery module to associate numeric and symbolic parameters (dimensions, angles, etc.) with the geometry;

a solid construction and feature extraction module to interpret 2D engineering drawings and derive 3D solid and feature information for modern CAD/CAM/CAE application;

a scaleable architecture for assembling these technologies with existing COTS to achieve an integrated solution to the problem of legacy data conversion; and

a prototype implementation of a PGED system.