HyCD: an Open Information Model for Cooperative Design

Cooperative design in engineering raises several requirements, such as modeling the complicated design object, hypermedia support, coordination support, open architecture for integrating current applications and modeling the process of cooperative design. In this paper, we propose an information model for cooperative design system to meet these requirements. This model, called HyCD, has three layers. The relationship layer focuses on the hierarchies and dependencies among pieces of the design object, the manipulation layer manages the view of the model, and the data layer is responsible for integration of current applications. HyCD provides explicit support for cooperation and coordination among multi-users. We have developed a cooperative design system based on HyCD, named CoDesign, of which we also make an introduction here. Finally, an example scenario is presented to illustrate the HyCD model.