Title: Feature ontologies for the explicit representation of shape semantics

Authors: Gino Brunetti, Stephan Grimm

Addresses: Department of Industrial Applications, Fraunhofer-Institut fur Graphische Datenverarbeitung, Fraunhoferstrasse 5, 64283 Darmstadt, Germany. ' Department of Industrial Applications, Fraunhofer-Institut fur Graphische Datenverarbeitung, Fraunhoferstrasse 5, 64283 Darmstadt, Germany

Abstract: CAx systems typically encode the semantics of shapes as so-called parametric features on different levels of abstraction. Here we discuss an approach that combines feature-based parametric modelling with techniques from the field of knowledge representation and ontological reasoning. Parametric models refer to feature ontologies that model feature semantics on several levels of granularity. On higher levels, the interrelation between features and feature interoperability is captured whereas on lower levels a feature is described in terms of geometric, topological and parametric entities. Different engineering tasks can utilise feature ontologies as a basis for application-specific shape reasoning across several modelling layers.

Keywords: feature ontologies; shape ontologies; shape reasoning; shape semantics; parametric features; feature-based modelling; parametric modelling; knowledge representation; ontological reasoning; shape retrieval; shape information.

DOI: 10.1504/IJCAT.2005.006481

International Journal of Computer Applications in Technology, 2005 Vol.23 No.2/3/4, pp.192 - 202

Published online: 13 Mar 2005 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article