An Object-Oriented Architecture for Integrated CAD Systems

An object-oriented architecture for development of integrated CAD systems is proposed and discussed. Combining “entity-relationship” paradigm and an original object-oriented approach to design, modeling and visualization, the architecture offers flexibility, extensibility and reusability enough to integrate different-purpose components and to develop complete CAD systems in essentially different areas on the same conceptual, methodological, instrumental and programming basis. The architecture includes an object-oriented kernel being invariant with respect to various applied areas and problems, unified graphic user interface and extended class libraries specific for considered areas. The object-oriented kernel supports representation of final results of design, modeling and visualization processes as a composition of connected typed data and algorithms and provides uniform mechanisms for composing complex designed objects, specifying modeling and visualization scenarios and their interpretation. The user graphic interface includes menus, dialogs and views that permit user to interactively manipulate with separate objects and whole scenarios in uniform manner. Discussion is illustrated by several examples of reusing the architecture for development of special systems. The architecture seems to be promising for development of integrated CAD systems and complex interactive, graphic, computational applications intended for interdisciplinary investigations.