Thomas Trevor Nysetvold

Automated Conflict Avoidance in Multi-user CAD

The NSF Center for e-Design, Brigham Young University (BYU) site has re-architected Computer Aided Design (CAD) tools enabling multiple users to concurrently create, modify and view the same CAD part or assembly. This technology allows engineers, designers and manufacturing personnel to simultaneously contribute to the design of a part or assembly in real time, enabling parallel work environments within the CAD system. Such systems are only as robust as their methods for managing conflicts (i.e. simultaneous edits of the same feature by multiple users). A heavy-handed conflict prevention would limit collaborative freedom. This paper discusses an automated feature reservation method which prevents multiple users from simultaneously editing the same feature. The method is implemented in a commercial CAD system. Results show that this methodology prevents data inconsistency that results from feature/self conflicts. This system prevents CAD modeling conflicts, while providing an agile user experience within the collaborative environment.

Scalable Integration of Commercial File Types in Multi-User CAD

ABSTRACTCurrent commercial computer aided design (CAD) tools limit a parallel engineering design workflow by only allowing a single user in the CAD model at a time. The NSF Center for e-Design at BYU has recently developed multi-user CAD tools which enable a parallel design workflow by allowing multiple users to simultaneously contribute to the same CAD model in real time. The combined challenges of consistent distributed naming and robust interoperation with commercial file types have created scalability and usability issues for previous multi-user CAD implementations. This paper presents persistent naming methods and a file-based architecture that address these challenges. An implementation of these methods shows that multi-user design within commercial CAD is increasingly scalable.

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

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.