Assembly modelling by geometric constraint satisfaction

doi:10.1016/0010-4485(96)00001-2

Computer-Aided Design

Volume 28, Issue 9, September 1996, Pages 707-722

https://doi.org/10.1016/0010-4485(96)00001-2 Get rights and content

Abstract

A new approach for representing and reasoning about assemblies of mechanical parts has been developed. The approach combines a formalism for representing relationships among features with a new method for geometric constraint satisfaction. The method employs symbolic reasoning about the geometric structure of parts to solve spatial constraints between the parts, in contrast to other approaches that reduce the geometric relationships to a set of non-linear equations to be solved. The system characterizes over-, under-, and fully-constrained assemblies. For under-constrained assemblies, the remaining degrees of freedom are automatically coalesced into a set of kinematic joints that capture some of the functionality of the assembly. For over-constrained situations, redundant constraints are identified and checked for consistency, and degenerate cases are handled; this allows multiple feature relationships between two parts to be handled. A computer implementation in a limited feature domain is described and used to illustrate the approach with an example.

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Cited by (99)

Generic face adjacency graph for automatic common design structure discovery in assembly models
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Common Design Structure Discovery (CDSD) is to identify local structures shared by multiple models. Nowadays it is mainly restricted to part models. Extending it to assembly models can produce a significant value for assembly design reuse. However, current descriptions of assembly models usually capture topological information qualitatively, considering little geometric information, and thus are not suitable for CDSD in assembly models (CDSDA). To counter this problem, this paper proposes a generic face adjacency graph (GFAG) which is extended from the face adjacency graph for B-Rep part model description. GFAG can transform abstract relationships in assembly models into measurable entities by introducing a concept of mating face pair (MFP), thus facilitating a more quantitative and consistent description of parts and relationships in assembly models. Corresponding to geometric faces and edges in a part model, GFAG treats parts and relationships in an assembly model as generic faces and generic edges respectively. To make GFAG have a higher discrimination capability, a node in GFAG captures the geometric information of a part together with its mating parts by shape parameters and also quantitatively incorporates a relationship between parts by shape parameters of an MFP. By doing so, GFAG can take more geometric information, together with topological information, into account quantitatively, and thus can be mapped into a 2D coordinate system for easy validation. We also extend a discovery algorithm to validate the feasibility of GFAG for CDSDA, and the results demonstrate the expected effectiveness.
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This paper makes explicit the relation between relative part position and kinematic freedom of the parts which is implicitly available in the literature. An extensive set of representative papers in the areas of assembly and kinematic modelling is reviewed to specifically identify how the ideas in the two areas are related and influencing the development of each other. The papers are categorised by the approaches followed in the specification, representation, and solution of the part relations. It is observed that the extent of the part geometry is not respected in modelling schemes and as a result, the causal flow of events (proximity–contact–mobility) during the assembling process is not realised in the existing modelling paradigms, which are focusing on either the relative positioning problem or the relative motion problem. Though an assembly is a static description of part configuration, achievement of this configuration requires availability of relative motion for bringing parts together during the assembly process. On the other hand, the kinematic freedom of a part depends on the nature of contacting regions with other parts in its static configuration. These two problems are thus related through the contact geometry. The chronology of the approaches that significantly contributed to the development of the subject is also included in the paper.
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Citation Excerpt :
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ResearchAssembly modelling by geometric constraint satisfaction

Abstract

Artificial Intelligence

Comput.-Aided Des.

Comput.-Aided Des.

Comput.-Aided Des.

Comput.-Aided Des.

Comput.-Aided Des.

Int. J. Mach. Tools Mfng.

Comput.-Aided Des.

Comput.-Aided Des.

J. Mfng Syst.

Comput.-Aided Des.

Artificial Intelligence

Comput.-Aided Des.

Comput.-Aided Des.

Artificial Intelligence

A geometric constraint management system in oar

An approach to geometric reasoning

The design of design environments

Computers Engng

Interacting and interfeature relationships in engineering design for manufacture

Int. J. Syst. Automat.: Res. Applicat.

Representation of assemblies for automated tolerance chain generation

Engng Computers

A polygonal solid modeling package

A group-theoretic approach to the computation of symbolic part relations

IEEE J. Robot. & Automat.

Constraints in constructive solid geometry

Feature based assembly modeling

Comput. Engng

Assembly modeling as an extension of feature-based design

Res. Engng Des.

Research
Assembly modelling by geometric constraint satisfaction