A Distributed Approach For Solid Modeling Based On Web Services

Traditional stand-alone computer-aided design (CAD) systems are built for single-user. With the popularity of network and the development of distributed applications, software architectures based on services are applied more and more in various types of applications and computing structures in complex heterogeneous network environment, delivering CAD services and designing over internet are becoming a reality.In this thesis, a distributed solid modeling framework is outlined. The general interfaces of traditional CAD software are encapsulated as web services. Each web service is mapped to specific operation. The framework implements an open distributed support environment of 3-D graphics applications, and lays the foundation for scientific visualization and visual manipulation.In order to build distributed and loosely coupled solid modeling system, a distributed approach based on web services is proposed: 1. To decrease the data-transferring through the internet, a hybrid solid model is built; 2. Based on modeling operation semantics, a modeling service description schema including service behavior is proposed to express the design intent of the services; 3. Based on the research on modeling service matching and composition, basic service matching methods are put forward, and a service composition schema based on design process templates is proposed; 4. A distributed solid modeling framework is outlined; 5. A web service based design system was built on the basis of Open CASCADE platform. It is shown that the proposed approach provides a novel pattern to realize distributed solid modeling applications.This thesis presents a novel way to encapsulate solid modeling operations with web services, and a distributed solid modeling system is implemented based on the framework presented. The service based distributed framework opens a new prospect to traditional CAD applications.