Comparative study of geometry specification capabilities of geometric modelling systems

This paper describes experimentation carried out with a novel computer aided design system which uses 'manufacturing features' as the principal method by which the designer specifies the geometric part of design. The approach has been experimentally compared with the more traditional methods of two dimensional computer aided draughting and solids modelling. With skilled industrially-based design engineers such a features approach compares well with the other methods in terms of the user time and the accuracy and completeness of the final models. Learning studies in the new technique and a large scale attitude survey are also briefly described.