The development tool of the application cooperation software

In the process of cooperative design, we often need to discuss or modify a project generated by traditional CAD software, but there are many limitations in current cooperative design tools, such as White Board Tool and Shared Tool. Considering these limitations, we put forward the concept of Application Cooperation Tool. The tool, a domain-depending one, aims to provide an environment for a group to discuss or modify a project generated by traditional application software. It not only keeps down the original functions of the traditional software but also supports the cooperative work. However, the development of application cooperation tools is a difficult and time-consuming job. During the process of developing application cooperation tools ACPBrush and ACAutoCAD98 we discovered some common features which exist in all kinds of CAD software, such as the analyzing of event-stream and the re-acting of the event. On the basis of those general rules we plan to develop a tool, which can modify traditional CAD software to a cooperation-based design tool. The paper discusses the methods used in it, the structure and components of the tool, and relative problems.