Electronic CAD Frameworks [Paperback]

When it comes to frameworks, the familiar story of the elephant and the six blind philosophers seems to apply. As each philoso? pher encountered a separate part of the elephant, each pronounced his considered, but flawed judgement. One blind philosopher felt a leg and thought it a tree. Another felt the tail and thought he held a rope. Another felt the elephant's flank and thought he stood before a wall. We're supposed to learn about snap judgements from this alle? gory, but its author might well have been describing design automation frameworks. For in the reality of today's product development requirements, a framework must be many things to many people. xiv CAD Frameworks: Integration Technology for CAD As the authors of this book note, framework design is an optimi? zation problem. Somehow, it has to be both a superior rope for one and a tremendous tree for another. Somehow it needs to provide a standard environment for exploiting the full potential of computer-aided engineering tools. And, somehow, it has to make real such abstractions as interoperability and interchangeability. For years, we've talked about a framework as something that provides application-oriented services, just as an operating system provides system-level support. And for years, that simple statement has hid the tremendous complexity of actually providing those services.1: Introdution.- 1.1 The Nature of a CAD Framework.- 1.2 The Evolution of CAD Frameworks.- 1.3 CAD Frameworks and Openness.- 1.4 The Rise of Commercial CAD Frameworks.- 1.5 The Impact of Object-Oriented Techniques.- 1.6 The Standardization of CAD Frameworks.- 1.7 Organization of the Book.- 2: Major Components of an Engineering Framework.- 2.1 Overview.- 2.2 Operating System Services.- 2.3 Tool Integration and Encapsulation.- 2.4 Design Management.- 3: Data Representation.- 3.1 Introduction.- 3.2 Databases and Data Structures.- 3.3 Approaches to CAD Databases.- 3.4 Representational Issues.- 3.5 The Nature of Engineering Desigl(