A NEW APPROACH TO FAST PIPING SYSTEM DESIGN (COMPUTER GRAPHICS, CAD-CAM)

A new approach to the fast interactive design of complex piping configurations is presented. The approach is based on the use of a symbolic 3D design model associated with a 2D drawing scheme. A homology between the symbol and object sets makes it possible to achieve real-time response in building the complex piping configurations. The system applies the "design-with-drawing" technique which uses the 2D drawing as a basic tool in conducting the design. The way in which a 3D description of the design can be obtained from the 2D drawing is illustrated. The system data structure meets the requirements of both user-friendliness and system efficiency. Area coherence of the drawing is utilized to achieve quick interference detection and hidden-line elimination. The grid scheme which partitions the piping drawing into a number of small cells and sorts the piping components into clusters reduces the search space and the amount of computations.;The system is capable of providing various realistic 3D views of the piping design. The basic principles of the system and an outline of the steps followed in achieving such fast piping design are described. The techniques developed here are potentially applicable to many other computer-aided-design systems.