Virtual Manufacturing,
Abstract
The role of computers in the mechanical design process is currently limited to drafting and, if expert systems prove useful, helping routine design detailing. Their great potential for analysis is largely limited to checking single pieces of already-completed designs. The most glaring defect in this situation is that the critical early stages of design--where different designs are compared and the general outlines of the final design are fixed--are conducted without computer support. This research argues that computers can fundamentally change and improve the design process by allowing interactive exploration of the space of valid designs. Computers can accomplish this by providing a drawing medium whose agility is comparable to pencil and paper, and which allows real-time structural and dynamic analysis of the entire system as it is being designed. There are several fundamental computational problems in achieving this goal. We describe a solution that depends upon a basic change in how we present and analyze structures, and describe a prototype system which has demonstrated significant promise.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jun 01, 1989
- Accession Number
- ADA292136
Entities
People
- Alex P. Pentland
- John R. Williams
Organizations
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology