Building a MidCAD platform for CAD model integration and data exchange

The exchange and sharing among heterogeneous data sources (such as different CAD systems) is the core of information integration in virtual product development. Generally, the design history-based parametric modeling approach is often adopted to exchange models; however, the size of each translator that exchanges the feature and parametric information tends to be large. Meanwhile, it is necessary to generate an internal explicit model for geometric modeling kernel when the translators use procedural model as neutral files. To overcome above-mentioned problems, this study presents a so-called MidCAD platform for CAD data sharing integration. The proposed platform separates the translator from the neutral files such that translators of different commercial CAD systems interact only with MidCAD. This study adopts Microsoft developed Automation APIs to implement the communication between MidCAD and commercial CAD systems. The source CAD model is translated to XML macro files by the translator using Automation APIs of MidCAD, or the XML macro files are translated into the target CAD system model. The MidCAD integration platform has been verified by a simple example.