A List of Responders
Virtual Manufacturing Background Project
Guang Zhong (g.zhong@engineering.hull.ac.uk) Department of Engineering Design & Manufacture The University of Hull HULL, HU6 7RX Tel: +44 482-466527 United Kingdom Fax: +44 482-466533
I have been carrying out research in computer aided conceptual design. As a result of the research a prototype of configuration system for mechanical fasteners has been developed with support from a local manufacture. Five papers from this research have been published. My main research effort has been focusing on integrating visualisation, qualitative and case-based reasoning techniques to provide conceptual design a formal computer support. In the prototype system being developed, visualisation supports conceptual design in two aspects: external and internal. To assist solution exploration, 'intelligent icons' are developed to allow engineers to view concepts, forms, proportions and interrelationships of the features, and to modify and manipulate these icons in a free way. The system provides feature, function and fastener icon libraries. The feature icons allow engineers to visualise cognitively the appearance, structure and spatial relationships of a proposed configuration and its generating process for aiding him or she to organise thoughts, record ideas, formulate solutions, and stimulating his/her imagination and creativity. The approximate shape and appearance of features is specified with the 'guiding' points on which the engineer can use the mouse to directly change the shape and size of the icon so that the geometric changes are constrained within a reasonable range in order to eliminate or minimise the difficulty of interpreting arbitrary modification on the icons. It is a quick and effective means to produce a visible candidate without depending on the engineer's informal drawing skills required in practice. It is also believed that such an visualisation may form an interface between conceptual design and detail design, and be used as a basis for further detail design. Corresponding to the icons are underlying cases and qualitative models. Case-based reasoning and qualitative reasoning techniques are integrated for representing and generating models of features and fastener candidates, and for evaluating them. The integrating of visualisation and hybrid (case-based and qualitative) reasoning makes knowledge base maintenance easier. Visualisation, in the prototype, is also provided to show (at an abstract level) the cause-effect relationships between features and performance. This is refer to as a nodal model implemented by hypermedia technique. The nodal model provides engineers a "window" to observe, interrogate and update the underlying abstract structure of a proposed design so as to formalise, complement and enrich their understanding of knowledge domain. ToolBook providing the implementation of the graphic design interface for icon based design and nodal model navigation. The knowledge base and hybrid reasoning mechanism are implemented in Kappa-PC. My research is relevant to the area listed below: >1. VISUALIZATION: The representation of information to the user in a way >that is meaningful and easily comprehensible. In addition to graphical >user interfaces (GUIs) and virtual reality technologies, this technical >area includes information distillation, aggregation and autointerpretation. If someone is interested in for more detailed information about my work, please contact me directly. I will try to make the information be available in my department URL in a few months.
A List of Responders
Virtual Manufacturing Background Project
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