R&D Of Computer-aided Design System For Receipt Printer Based On Design Specifications

CAD (Computer-aided design) is one of the most popular methodsfor modern product design, especially with the rapid growth of3-dimension CAD systems and network database technologies. Under this circumstance, the development of networking parts library on commercially CAD platforms hasdrawn a wider attention among enterprises in that such libraries which greatly improves the efficiency and standardization of product design. With the analysis of existing part libraries, the variable design method for receipt printers based on design specifications is investigated. Further, a client/serverCAD system based on design specifications for receipt printers is developed with VB and SQL Server2005under the environment of Solid Edge. The main content of this paper is as follows:Feature modeling, variable design and variable feature modeling technologies are briefly introduced taking the design of receipt printer parts for example. It describes the method of variable design in Solid Edge system and introduces the contents of variable table and the method of use in details. The variable design process in Solid Edge environment is introduced and the advantages of variable design are presented.The receipt printer parts are classified. In accordance with the design requirements specific to enterprises, corresponding documentand rule-type specifications are prepared. The mapping between parts, documents, and rules is presented, which lays a sound foundation for the design and development of the specification-based computer-aided design system.The client/server architecture of the proposed system is built in accordance with the functional requirements of enterprises. The module function is divided and the main functions of each module, database structure and the logical relationship between each module are designed in detail.The procedures for secondary development of Solid Edge package are proposed. The receipt printer CAD system based on design specifications is implemented with VB6.0and SQL Server2005development tools in the environment of Windows XP system. At last the system is verified by the enterprise application.