Brett Stone

Multi-User Computer-Aided Design and Engineering Software Applications

This chapter will introduce multi-user computer-aided engineering applications as a new paradigm for product development, considering past collaborative research and the emerging wave of cloud-based social and gaming tools. In a historical context, computer-aided design and engineering models have become much more complex since their inception in the middle of the twentieth century. However, the way design teams approach these models has, at least in one sense, not changed much; a given model can still only be accessed by one user at a time, despite the fact that the entire design team needs to evolve the model. Single user applications have become a productivity bottleneck and do not provide interfaces or architectures for simultaneous editing of models by a collaborative team. Single user applications convert any hope for process concurrency into a serial sequence of design activities. When the single user designer experiences difficulties, the process halts until the designer can reach out to other experts to resolve the problems, which usually requires some form of external collaboration. Unfortunately, single user applications are deficient when it comes to complex and globalized product development. The chapter herein will consider how multi-user architectures will change the single user paradigm from serial to simultaneously collaborative, promote new on-demand access methods like cloud serving, and bring long hoped for efficiencies to product development. We will investigate three research areas of importance to this emerging paradigm: (1) multi-user CAx architectures, including cloud serving; (2) multi-user CAx requirements; and (3) multi-user CAx standards. Of these three, architectures are most investigated, with numerous proof-of-concept prototypes, while requirements and standards, the least investigated, partially explain the reason for non-adoption and non-commercialization of this powerful new paradigm.

Collaborative Design Principles From Minecraft With Applications to Multi-User CAD

Real-time simultaneous multi-user (RSM) computer-aided design (CAD) is currently a major area of research and industry interest due to its potential to reduce design lead times and improve design quality through enhanced collaboration. Minecraft, a popular multi-player online game in which players use blocks to design structures, is of academic interest as a natural experiment in collaborative 3D design of very complex structures. Virtual teams of up to forty simultaneous designers have created city-scale models with total design times in the thousands of hours. Using observation and a survey of Minecraft users, we offer insights into how virtual design teams might effectively build, communicate, and manage projects in an RSM CAD design environment. The results suggest that RSM CAD will be useful and practical in an engineering setting with several simultaneous contributors. We also discuss the potential effects of RSM CAD on team organization, planning, design concurrency, communication, and mentoring.Copyright

Integrated, Synchronous Multi-User Design and Analysis

An integrated multi-user system for synchronous design and analysis improves collaboration and concurrent engineering across multiple engineering disciplines. This approach allows all members of a multidisciplinary team (i.e., a team made up of designers and structural analysts) to access the same shared model over a computer network and synchronously contribute to the model in real-time. Data for both design and analysis are directly based on the same mathematical representation of the geometry, eliminating the need for model translation between disciplines. All data are stored on a central server which allows simultaneous access by multiple users. Each user views and operates on the model in a way specific to his or her discipline. Updates to the shared model are seen in real-time. This system enables an enhanced parallel product development workflow, since users from multiple disciplines can simultaneously contribute to the same engineering model. A simple implementation of an integrated multi-user design and analysis system was developed to demonstrate this method. Preliminary results from two experiments suggest a reduction in the amount of time required to perform design and analysis operations when compared with traditional, single-user approaches. Future research is suggested.

Collaborative Design Principles From Minecraft With Applications to Multi-User Computer-Aided Design

Synchronous collaborative (“multi-user”) computer-aided design (CAD) is a current topic of academic and industry interest due to its potential to reduce design lead times and improve design quality through enhanced collaboration. Minecraft, a popular multiplayer online game in which players can use blocks to design structures, is of academic interest as a natural experiment in a collaborative 3D design of very complex structures. Virtual teams of up to 40 simultaneous designers have created city-scale models with total design times in the thousands of hours. Using observation and a survey of Minecraft users, we offer insights into how virtual design teams might effectively build, communicate, and manage projects in a multi-user CAD design environment. The results suggest that multi-user CAD will be useful and practical in an engineering setting with several simultaneous contributors. We also discuss the effects of multi-user CAD on team organization, planning, design concurrency, communication, and mentoring.

An integrated task management system to reduce semantic conflicts in multi-user computer-aided design

Simultaneous multi-user computer-aided design enables teams of designers to contribute simultaneously to the same model. As multiple users make contributions to the model, all users see additions from all other collaborators in real-time. However, without careful coordination, conflicts that violate the design intent of the model may occur. These are referred to as semantic conflicts and lead to redundant work by users. This article presents a method to reduce semantic conflicts through a task management system integrated directly into multi-user computer-aided design. Experiments were run that compare multi-user teams’ design modeling times with and without the integrated task management system. The results of these experiments show that the integrated task management system significantly reduces the time to complete design models by reducing semantic conflicts through enhanced organization and communication.

Methods for determining the optimal number of simultaneous contributors for multi-user CAD parts

ABSTRACTThe development of multi-user CAD (MUCAD) tools has opened up exciting new opportunities and applications. The capability for multiple users to simultaneously model and design a CAD part has far-reaching potential. However, many basic questions remains unanswered, such as how many users should work together on a given part. This research proposes and develops a set of methods to determine the optimal number of users for a given part within a MUCAD environment, based on the characteristics of the part itself. Two candidate models are evaluated with a set of 60 experiments with design teams composed of different numbers of users. The models show modest correlations with the test data while more-refined models are explored to improve predictive power. On the other hand, highly significant correlations between the ability to predict completion time and multi-user team size were identified in the experimental data. Observations regarding the speed and quality of MUCAD teams are also made with future ar...