Each year, thousands of custom CAD/CAM/CAE applications are being created to meet the
needs of industry, education and research. To facilitate this process, programmers should
have available to them high-level tools which are device-independent These enablers will
allow for the rapid creation of highly portable software.
From this need, a curve and surface framework is created. This framework allows the
engineer to create, manipulate, and analyze geometric entities. The design allows new
curve and surface implementations to be fully integrated into the framework without
requiring modifications to other entities within the framework. The framework utilizes the
International Standards Organization (ISO) and American National Standard Institute
(ANSI) 3-D graphics standard, PHIGS, and is thus device independent. Furthermore, the
use of the IGES data exchange standard enables the transfer of data through files with an
ISO/ANSI/ASME accepted format.
Five curve classes and two surface classes are implemented to demonstrate the potential of
the framework. The curve classes include a Line, Polyline, Arc, Cubic Bézier, and NonUniform
Cubic B-Spline Curve classes, and the surface classes include the Non-Uniform
Cubic B-Spline Surface and the Planar Surface classes.
The result of the design is a highly extensible and maintainable framework for geometric
modeling which reduces the work required by programmers in the creation and integration
of geometric entities in complex software.
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