Chapter 7

Data Exchange Standards:

 CAD application has increased with-

o Growth in product variety
o Broadening of companies involved in product design
 Traditionally, automotive components were designed by the manufacturer themselves
 Current trend is to assign increasing number of components to suppliers
 Great deal of data concerning vehicle and component designs has to be exchanged
between various companies
 CAD is able to accomplish this exchange of data
 Easiest way to exchange data between two companies is to use the same CADCAM
software
o Should operate at same revision level
 Previously special translator programs were used to convert data from one system to
another
o But the number of softwares increased manifold
o For solving them, a solution was found
o Before data exchange every system was converted to a neutral format
o From that neutral format another conversion occurred to other systems

Difficulty:

 Sources of engineering softwares are less diverse

 Neutral file should be internationally agreed standard
 Wide variety used in CAD industry
o Some limit surface description to cubic polynomial base
o Some use polynomials of higher order
o Some do 2d draughting
o Some allow wire-frame, surface or solid model
 Translation from one to another is sometimes impossible and sometimes possible with
loss of precision

Benefits of Data Exchange:

 Automotive & Aerospace Industries focus mainly of exchange of geometric data

o Vital for description of component form
 Partially successful
 Development of standards very much in progress
IGES Standard:

 A specification for the structure and syntax of a neutral file in ASCII/Compressed

ASCII/Binary Format

ASCII File:

 Divided into 80 character records

 Each record line has identifier in column 73-80
 First character of the identifier indicates the file section
 Remainder is an integer number starting with one at the beginning of each section
o This number used for cross-referencing
 5 sections-
o Start
o Global
o Directory
o Parameter Data
o Termination

Start Section:

 Set up manually by the person initiating the IGES file

 Contains info for user assistance at the destination
o Example: Feature of originating system

Global Section:

 Provides parameters necessary to translate the file in 24 fields

o Sender’s identifiers
o File name
o Receiver’s identifier
o IGES version etc.

Directory Section:

 Generated by IGES pre-processor

 Contains an entry for each entity in the file
o Comprises a code representing several things to the entity data in the next section
 Entity type
 Subtype
 Pointer
 2 lines having 18 fields of 8 characters used for each entry

Parameter Data Section:

  Contains entry-specific data
o Co-ordinate calues
o Annotation text
 First parameter identifies the entity type from which meanings of the remaining
parameters may be derived
 Each entry has a pointer in columns 66-72 to the directory entry for the entity

Termination Section:

 Marks the end of the data file

 Contains subtotal of records for data transmission check purpose

DXF:

 Short for Data Exchange Format

 It is a format of storage
o Readable form using ASC II
 ASCII representation
 AutoCAD pioneered it
o Used 2 storage format
 .DWG Format
 Compact Binary Form
 Readable form using ASC II
 Made it straightforward for customers to work with AUTOCAD OR autodesk FILES
 Long
o Assign two lines in the file to each data item
o First line describes what the data item is
o Second line gives value of the item

Parts of DXF File:

1. Header
 Values for AUTOCAD system variables like-
 User interface style
 Parameters
 Dimension styles
2. Tables
 Line styles
 User defined coordinate systems
3. Blocks
  Dimensions of blocks instanced in the model
4. Entities
 Entry definitions and data