Integrated reverse engineering and rapid prototyping

Reverse engineering is a methodology for constructing CAD models of physical parts by digitizing an existing part, creating a computer model and then using it to manufacture the component. When a digitized part is to be manufactured by means of rapid prototyping machines such as stereolithography apparatus (SLA) and selective laser sintering equipments (SLS), etc., it is not necessary to construct the CAD model of a digitized part. This will be described by the proposed novel method which can construct STL file (the de facto file format for rapid prototyping machines) directly from digitized part data. Further more, the STL file can even be constructed in a way that significant data reduction can be achieved at the users' discretion.     

Knowledge-based system for rapid prototyping

In recent years it has been noticed that rapid prototyping produces better software products. Research on combining Artificial Intelligence and software engineering has also been conducted for a number of years. A knowledge-based system for rapid prototyping is presented. In the system, the Frame-and-Rule Oriented Requirements Language and a methodology are developed to provide an integrated means of prototyping throughoyt the software life cycle. The particular application domain to be modelled is represented in terms of objects and activities. FRORL, which uses the concept of frames and production systems, describes the problem domain's objects and activities in a natural way. With the support of a knowledge base, a software prototype can be rapidly developed using FRORL. The system has been implemented using Prolog on a VAX-11/780 computer.     

Automated Tools for Rapid Prototyping

An automated environment is presented which aids the software engineers in developing data processing systems by using rapid prototyping techniques.The environment is being developed on VAX station.It can render good support to the specification of the requirements and the rapid creation of prototype.The goal,the methodology,the general structure of the environment and two sub-systems are discussed.     

Shape enhancement for rapid prototyping

Many applications, for instance, in the reverse engineering and cultural heritage field, require building a physical replica of 3D digital models. Recent 3D printers can easily perform this task in a relatively short time and using color to reproduce object textures. However, the finite resolution of printers and, most of all, some peculiar optical and physical properties of the used materials reduce their perceptual quality. The contribution of this paper is a shape enhancing technique which allows users to increase readability of the tiniest details in physical replicas, without requiring manual post-reproduction interventions.     

Concurrent intelligent rapid prototyping environment

Rapid prototyping technology enables rapid production of complex objects directly from a computer-aided design model without involving any tooling or conventional part programming. This has created a new set of problems associated with part design, process planning, support design and value engineering analysis of rapid prototyping parts. In this paper, a methodology for resolving these problems is described, which uses concurrent engineering, distributed blackboard, value engineering, knowledge-based and feature-based technologies. The functionality, design methodology and knowledge representation techniques of a concurrent intelligent rapid prototyping system for stereolithography form the main focus of this paper.     

Software evolution through rapid prototyping

Rapid prototyping is defined, and its role in software evolution is examined. Software evolution refers to all activities that change a software system. It differs from maintenance in that the latter is done after the initial development, whereas evolution activities are interleaved with the initial development and continue after the delivery of the initial version of the system. In the author's approach to rapid prototyping, software systems are delivered incrementally and requirements analysis continues throughout the process, interleaved with implementation and evolution. The focus is on reducing requirements errors through prototyping before undertaking the incremental implementation effort for each deliverable version of the system. The evolution of a hyperthermia system is considered as an example     

Logic programming and compiler writing

The concept of ‘logic programming’, and its practical application in the programming language Prolog, are explained from first principles. The ideas are illustrated by describing in detail one sizable Prolog program which implements a simple compiler. The advantages and practicability of using Prolog for ‘real’ compiler implementation are discussed.     

Logic programming and software maintenance

The main objective of this short paper is to describe the relationship between software maintenance and logic programming (both declarative and procedural), and to show how ideas and methods from logic programming (in particular, methods invented by M. Gelfond) can be used in software maintenance. The material presented in this paper partly appeared in (Luqi and Cooke, 1995). The main difference is that (Luqi and Cooke, 1995) is aimed mainly at software engineers, so it only briefly touches on the software engineering problems, while describing in great detail the basics of logic programming. In contrast, in this paper, we assume that the corresponding logic programming notions are well known, but describe the corresponding software engineering applications in greater detail. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

A case study in rapid prototyping

A case study in rapid prototyping of a new language processor is described. A quick version of the system was developed in SNOBOL4, revised in SNOBOL4, and then rewritten in Pascal. This led to an operational system very early in the development cycle where operational characteristics of the system could be tested easily. The goals of this experiment as well as some of the results are described.     

Logic programming with arrays

Nial is a programming language designed around a mathematical treatment of data as nested arrays. A goal of the research described is to integrate within Nial a functional style of programming based on the theory of arrays with the declarative capabilities of a logic programming environment. This is partially accomplished by storing logic clauses as arrays which can be manipulated using logic clauses. Arrays as terms are considered as part of the syntax of the clauses. The approach to logic programming is based on providing a flexible environment for experimenting with full clausal or Horn clause logic. A variety of predefined control strategies and the capability for user-defined control strategies have been provided. The expressive capabilities of combining logic and functional programming styles provides a suitable language for many application areas. The philosophy and design behind a combined logic/database model used to prototype a knowledge-based systems application are described     

Logic programming in Prolog

The language Prolog has been in existence since 1971/1972, but commercial interest has been apparent for only two or three years. This interest has arisen for two reasons. First, from Prolog's use as a central feature of the Japanese (and other) proposed fifth generation computer systems and second as an ideal language in which to develop expert systems.     

An architecture for WSI rapid prototyping

Wafer-scale integration architecture for rapid prototyping (WARP), a generalized architecture for rapid prototyping, is discussed. The primary goal of rapid prototyping is to map one of several members of a class of algorithms using a single-wafer architecture. The wafer can be personalized for the algorithm by either soft or hard-restructuring. The WARP wafer consists of an array of two types of cells specifically defined for this architecture: the universal multiply-subtract-add (UMSA) cell and the universal nonlinear (UNL) cell. Reconfiguration of the algorithms in the presence of defects, a harvesting probability model and yield, and wafer-scale testing and test facilities are described     

Hybrid rapid prototyping system using machining and deposition

Many rapid prototyping (RP) systems are commercially available, and others are introduced daily. RP has proven to be an effective tool for dramatically reducing the time and expense involved in the realization of a new products and for overcoming the bottlenecks of existing manufacturing processes. However, its fields of application are currently saturated, and the emphasis has moved towards using RP for short-run manufacture. The current need is for a technique that will produce finished parts of the required quality in the shortest possible time, and which meet this need, the focus now falls on improvements in production speed, accuracy, variety of materials, and cost. For these practical reasons, we concentrated on a new form of hybrid-RP system, which performs both deposition and machining in a single station. Our proposed system meets the requirements of material deposition (RP) and material removal (CNC) at the process planning and manufacturing level. We believe that this new production system, which incorporates a combined RP concept, offers an optimum manufacturing solution by adopting the advantages of the RP and CNC systems. In this paper, we describe the system architecture and the fabrication process in detail and present the framework of the process planning system and the concepts of the geometric algorithms involved in developing such an environment.     

Software storming: combining rapid prototyping and knowledgeengineering

A method for rapidly producing highly functional prototypes is described. This method, called software storming, involves experts in the initial design and implementation of a system during an intense development effort that combines knowledge engineering with the latest advances in software-development technology and workstation hardware The experiment described is a test of tools and techniques developed in the field of artificial intelligence as well as the first step in the development of software storming. Using this approach, the authors developed a software prototype which possesses significantly more functionality than a standard prototype, in less than four months     

Logic programming,abduction and probability

Probabilistic Horn abduction is a simple framework to combine probabilistic and logical reasoning into a coherent practical framework. The numbers can be consistently interpreted probabilistically, and all of the rules can be interpreted logically. The relationship between probabilistic Horn abduction and logic programming is at two levels. At the first level probabilistic Horn abduction is an extension of pure Prolog, that is useful for diagnosis and other evidential reasoning tasks. At another level, current logic programming implementation techniques can be used to efficiently implement probabilistic Horn abduction. This forms the basis of an “anytime” algorithm for estimating arbitrary conditional probabilities. The focus of this paper is on the implementation.     

Logic programming and digital circuit analysis

We show how the unique character of logic programming can be exploited for the purpose of specifying and automatically reasoning about electrical circuits. Although propositional logic has long been used for describing the truth functions of combinational circuits, the more powerful predicate calculus on which logic programming is based has seen relatively little use in design automation. Previous researchers have introduced a number of techniques similar to logic programming, but many of the useful consequences of the methodology have not been demonstrated. We describe particular consequences of using this method for writing directly executable specifications of circuits, including the use of quantified variables, verification of hypothetical states, and sequential simulation. We have used these methods to solve problems in gate assignment, specialization of standard definitions, and determination of signal flow.     

Architecture for rapid prototyping of visual controllers

In this paper, we present an architecture for rapid prototyping of visual controllers based on standard off-the-shelf hardware and software. The proposed scheme allows control of a wide class of systems including robot manipulators and underactuated systems using a digital camera. The graphical programming environment is based on MatLab/Simulink^© which allows us to take advantage of Simulink graphic programming facilities. Experiments are presented to evaluate the proposed architecture.     

Synopsys开创快速原型新时代

目前,设计属于自己的原型系统的费用随着工艺水平的提升而越来越高.在金融危机的背景下,如何使自己的利润最大化尤为引人关注.同时,越来越复杂的SoC、越来越多的嵌入式软件和高成本的仿真,催生出系统设设和验证的新方法.