CollabCAD: A Toolkit for Integrated Synchronous and Asynchronous Sharing of CAD Applications

We are developing CollabCAD, a novel software architecture and toolkit, that supports sharing of arbitrary user-de ned objects or applications over intranets and the internet. Developers can use CollabCAD to rapidly re-engineer existing CAD applications to be collaboration-capable or build new collaboration-capable CAD applications. CollabCAD provides the following functionalities: 1. Support for exible forms of sharing in which users can interact with multiple presentations of CAD applications or objects. 2. asynchronous and synchronous sharing, as well as a mixture of both, 3. e ective communication between users by supporting direct manipulation of user-de ned objects, and a new form of sharing called para-synchronous sharing, 4. support for asymmetric collaborations between users with (1) di erent roles, or, (2) systems with di erent input-output, hardware and network capabilities. We plan to test and evaluate CollabCAD by building collaboration systems in several CADoriented application areas: these include virtual reality for mechanical, architectural and molecular CAD, and volume visualization and volume graphics for CAD applications.