Abstract
Sinfonia is a module for feature-based design which is configurable to users and applications within diverse CAD environments, particularly in the area of mechanical engineering. Sinfonia has an open and modular architecture that allows to modify and extend existing functionalities, and to integrate new modeling facilities and application tasks. This module enables the users to work with standard pre-defined design features delivered with the module, or to define dynamically their own specific design features during the design session. Furthermore, Sinfonia allows the interactive definition of constraints concerning the product semantics. Definition and administration of constraints in feature-based models provided by a consistency manager is supported to reach semantical correctness of the part models.
The main modules of Sinfonia are the Feature Modeler and the Design Feature Manager. The Feature Modeler is responsible for the instantiation of features and the creation of the feature-based model. The Design Feature Manager allows feature data and design processes to be managed in a uniform way. The CAD system environment in which Sinfonia is integrated consists of the following modules: the User Interface System and the Application modules (offering tools for interaction of the user with application specific part models and for communication with external systems and applications, such as NC modules, etc.), the Solid Modeler (responsible for creating the shape representation of the feature-based model), the Consistency Manager (providing services to handle all kinds of different constraints within the design environment) and the Product Database which includes all services for storing and retrieving various product data.
