Communications of the ACM
Rethinking Cad: New Design Paradigms in the Age of 3-D Printing
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The future of computer-aided design (CAD) tools, in light of recent developments in three-dimensional printing and additive manufacturing, was the focus of a recent workshop by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's Information Science and Technology group. Industrial and academic experts from manufacturing and mechanical design fields noted most CAD tools provide limited or no integrated models of physical and material properties to designers. Panel members also said current tools are very limited in terms of their ability to capture and make use of design requirements in such a way that they become testable during the design process. Moreover, it was clear to all participants that the exploration of design spaces requires automated or semi-automated synthesis.
The convened experts agreed that design languages need the ability to communicate function, requirements, and constraints in a computer-interpretable manner. Such specifications would facilitate automated testing/assessment of design requirements and specifications and automated design generation and optimization, such as tools that could suggest design optimal geometries, materials, and structures.
Automated design and testing requires more information than is currently supplied to CAD tools, and the experts agreed that better, more natural interfaces are needed to make it possible to express this information easily and efficiently.
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Abstracts Copyright © 2014 Information Inc., Bethesda, Maryland, USA
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