An Investigation of Integrating Design by Features and Feature Recognition

1 Currently with HKS 2 Corresponding author ([email protected]) ABSTRACT Feature technology has been evolving since the early 1980s, yet is still found in few commercial CAD systems. Traditional CAD systems provide support for geometric design and limited parametric design. Two basic approaches to feature modeling have been developed: design by features and feature recognition. Each of these methods provide specific tools to designers not provided in traditional CAD. A truly comprehensive system ought to integrate the advances in geometric modeling, parametric modeling, design by features, and feature recognition. A brief review of existing integrated systems is provided. Geometric representations, feature representations, and model integration schemes are discussed. Finally, a discussion of the issues involved with developing an integrated system is provided. These issues evolved from the development of such as system.