Implementation of collaborative design environment based on single user CAD systems

Traditional CAD systems are also called single user CAD as single users exclusively operate these systems. This paper demonstrates a novel method that implements cooperative geometry editing between a number of users on traditional CAD systems. In the proposed implementation, a single user CAD, where participants run their own CAD processes in local computers or workstations, can simultaneously share and coedit a design model with other single users in different sites through a client server architecture. Information packages pertaining to the creation and modification of a shared CAD model is also broadcast among the participants. Because there is no need for frequent image upgrades, which in turn results in high latencies and a very disappointing interaction behavior, the amount of data that has to be manipulated in this proposed system is dramatically reduced. This is due to the fact that after an initial model download, only the changes of the model are transmitted