Maintaining the Design Intent in the Synthesis of 3D and 1D System Models using Constraints

Systems design consists of both geometry-based three-dimensional (3D) and energy-based one-dimensional (1D) models. Automatically synthesizing 1D and 3D models from the same specification is useful because it saves time and eliminates errors. State-of-the-art synthesis algorithms use a one-to-one mapping of 3D to 1D artifacts and therefore only cover the geometric aspects of the design. In this paper, we propose an approach where constraints are abstracted to the functional level and integrated with the functional models thus providing for efficient 3D to 1D mapping and allowing for 1D to 3D mapping. Additionally, we present our work in the context of Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) systems and demonstrate the novel capabilities of our software using a real-world satellite and excavator design examples.