Virtual Environment of Design: A Hybrid CAD Tool

A virtual environment of design can provide the industrial designer comprehensive power and flexibilities beyond geometrical design by means of enabling modeling, analysis, and simulation of both mechanical and electronic systems in an integrated environment. The design of electronic appliance has specific characteristics distinguished by its hybrid features. To support this kind of design, issues of both mechanical and electronic nature need to be concerned. This paper focuses mainly on the modeling and simulation aspects of electronic products design. With a generalized overview on CAD tools, in this paper, a framework of the virtual environment of design is presented and a formal description of modeling of the design task is formulated as a hybrid system. As an example, a hybrid CAD tool for a VCR controller design is discussed in detail, including hardware set-up, computation model, event handling, system description, and reformation of design process of electronic products via simulating and validation facilities provided by the virtual environment of design.