Future computer aided design systems will themselves be designed using tools and methods that are still under development. This book presents the latest progress in research on the tools and methods needed to develop those CAD systems. The topics covered include algorithmic aspects, the product data and development process, future CAD architectures, feature based modeling and automatic feature recognition, complex surface design, and system implementation issues. The book contains contributions by the world's leading experts in the field of CAD technology from both universities and industry. The contributions are based on lectures given at the International Conference and Research Center for Computer Science, Schloss Dagstuhl, Germany.

Geometric constraint programming increases flexibility in CAD design specifications and leads to new conceptual design paradigms.
This volume features a collection of work by leading researchers developing the various aspects of constraint-based product modeling.
In an introductory chapter the role of constraints in CAD systems of the future and their implications for the STEP data exchange format are discussed. The main part of the book deals with the application of constraints to conceptual and collaborative design, as well as state-of-the-art mathematical and algorithmic methods for constraint solving.

This book is based on lectures presented at an international workshop on geometric modeling held at Hewlett Packard GmbH in Boblingen, FRG, in June 1990. International experts from academia and industry were selected to speak on the most interesting topics in geometric modeling. The resulting papers, published in this volume, give a state-of-the-art survey of the relevant problems and issues. The following topics are discussed: - Methods for constructing surfaces on surfaces: four different solutions to the multidimen sional problem of constructing an interpolant from surface data are provided. - Surfaces in solid modeling: current results on the implementation of free-fonn solids in three well established solid models are reviewed. - Box splines and applications: an introduction to box spline methods for the representation of surfaces is given. Basic properties of box splines are derived, and refinement and evaluation methods for box splines are presented in detail. Shape preserving properties, the construction of non-rectangular box spline surfaces, applications to surface modeling, and imbedding problems, are discussed. - Advanced computer graphics techniques for volume visualization: the steps to be executed in the visualization process of volume data are described and tools are discussed that assist in handling this data. - Rational B-splines: an introduction to the representation of curves and surfaces using rational B-splines is given, together with a critical evaluation of their potential for industrial application."

Moderne Losungsansatze fur eine effiziente Anpassungs- und Variantenkonstruktion, die in den letzten Jahren entwickelt wurden und in verschiedenen Formen in CAD-Systemen der neuen Generation zum Einsatz kommen.

Die Gesellschaft fur Informatik (GI) veranstaltet eine Reihe von Seminaren, die wichtigen aktuellen Entwicklungen gewidmet sind. Unter der Anleitung von Wissenschaftlern, die auf dem Gebiet ausgewiesen sind, erarbeiten junge Wissenschaftler solche Forschungsgebiete, die noch keine Darstellung in Lehrbuchern gefunden haben, mit dem Ziel, diese in einheitlicher Terminologie und verstandlich darzustellen."

Dieses Buch gibt eine kompakte Einfuhrung sowohl in den Aufbau und die Funktionsweise von Computersystemen, als auch in deren Programmierung in einer problemorientierten Programmiersprache (PASCAL). Es wendet sich in erster Linie an Studierende, die Informatik lediglich in Form einer praxisorientierten Einfuhrung benotigen. Gleichwohl bietet es den Studenten der Informatik die Moglichkeit, sich fruhzeitig einen Uberblick uber wichtige Gebiete der Informatik zu verschaffen, die im Laufe ihres Studiums noch vertieft werden.