Research on Method of Integrating CAD and CAPP Based on PDM

With the development of computer system, Computer-Aided Design (CAD)and Computer-Aided Process Planning (CAPP) have emerged as effective means of improving productivity and efficiency, resulting in widespread research work related to CAD and CAPP integration in the hope of achieving seamless data flow among the relevant computer systems. Unfortunately, the efficiency of process planning systems still needs significant improvement due to the problems of design data loss or design data misinterpretation. Combine geometric feature of 3-D CAD system with precision feature of CAPP system by the rules of renaming the feature tree in the CAD. Then interface module of CAD/CAPP is developed to extract the feature data from the model and store in the part feature table of the PDM. This method has not been confined to the special part and CAD system, and provide a kind of new thought for integrating of CAD and CAPP.