Information mapping between a feature-based design system and an integrated process planning system

This paper introduces a prototype feature-based design system and a mechanism for mapping its data to an integrated knowledge-based process planning system. The information includes the primary feature data directly from the design front-end, a boundary representation (Brep) model of the feature geometry, processed manufacturing feature data and re-formatted data for the planning system. The difference between the component representations at the design stage and at the process planning stage are analysed, and the difficulties and problems with each mapping activity are also discussed. An example is given to demonstrate the main tasks of the data mapping process between the integrated Computer-Aided Design (CAD) and Computer-Aided Manufacture (CAM) systems.