Feature research : review and future direction

Abstract

Feature research is the work involved in searching or identifying distinctive shape that exists on the CAD model. To a computer, this distinctive shape is just a low-level geometrical definition, which is incomprehensible to engineers, designers or process planners. To make this low-level definition more easily understandable, engineering knowledge has to be integrated to the model. This integration transforms the low-level geometrical definition of a CAD model into high-level product definition. Hence, downstream activities can be incorporated even during modeling. This paper outlines the feature technology by reviewing some of the current methodology. Lastly, it points out its future direction.