Feature Extraction from CAD using Artificial Intelligence

The field of solid modeling has developed a variety of techniques for unambiguous representations of three-dimensional objects. Feature recognition is a sub-discipline of solid modeling that focuses on the design and implementation of algorithms for detecting manufacturing information from solid models produced by computer-aided design (CAD) systems. Examples of this manufacturing information include features such as holes, slots, pockets, steps and other shapes that can be created on modern computer numerically controlled machining systems. Feature recognition has been an interesting research area in solid modeling for a few decades and is considered to be a critical link for integration of CAD and CAM. It is a necessary component of an integrated Computer Aided Design/Computer Aided Manufacturing (CAD/CAM) environment to automatically recognize manufacturing features from a CAD data base or solid model. In this book a methodology for recognizing some of the machining features has been presented. The computational issues involved in building tractable and scalable solutions for automated feature recognition have also been addressed.