ANALYSIS OF THE DESIGN PROCESS AS BASIS FOR THE DEFINITION OF CAD-FUNCTIONS DISTRIBUTED ON HIERARCHICAL NETWORKS

Abstract

It seems to be no question any more, that intelligent graphics work stations will be integrated as terminals into networks, especially because of the process in hardware and network development. But we do not know yet, which of the graphics and CAD functions will have to be kept local, i.e. on the first processor seen from the user, and which may be placed on more remote processors. The author analyses the designers activities when constructing a new technical object and defines a hierarchy of functions. From this proposal a graphics/CAD system architecture is derived with a functional hierarchy of "pipelined" processors and an outline of a system currently under implementation is given.