Since the first DIISM conference, which took place 9 years ago, the world has seen drastic changes, including the transformation of manufacturing and engineering software, and the information and communication technologies deployed. The conditions for manufacturing and engineering have changed on a large scale, in terms of technology-enabled collaboration among the fields of design, engineering, production, usage, maintenance and recyclingldisposal. These changes can be observed in rapidly-growing fields such as supply chain management. As for production technologies at factory floors, new visions on human-machine co-existing systems involve both knowledge management and multi-media technologies. Therefore, because of these changes, the importance of information infrastructure for manufacturing has increased, stunningly. Information infrastructure plays a key role in integrating diverse fields of manufacturing, engineering and management. This, in addition to its basic role, as the information and communication platform for the production systems. Eventually, it should also serve the synthetic function of knowledge management, during the life cycles of both the production systems and their products, and for all stakeholders.

Rapid Product Development is a spectrum of integrated actlYllles from initial requirements through research & development, design, simulation, modeling, analysis, prototyping, testing, production, deployment, training, maintenance, repair, disposal and recycling, along with many other intermediate and supporting elements such as quality, reliability, information integration and supporting infrastructures. This term distinguishes leading edge manufacturing technologies, processes, information systems and management practices from their more conventional predecessors in traditional manufacturing systems. The increased speed and flexibility of the new rapid product development processes correspond to greatly reduced time to market for new products, by changing the basic nature of product realization. It is therefore necessary to take account of aspects such as technology integration, cost, quality and time management, team work and business process organization and the supporting functions of data processing, to guarantee the rapid development of innovative products. Key technologies for Rapid Product Development include such topics as Rapid Prototyping, New Generative Manufacturing Methods, Design and Information Management, Virtual Prototyping and Reverse Engineering. This book is a collection of relevant papers which are related with these topics. It contains invited papers for technical trends of Rapid Product Development, and it also serves as a basis for further advanced researches.

In this global society, manufacturers compete in many ways, and information infrastructures play a critical role in ensuring the right information is available at the right time and the right place to support informed decision making. The traditional approach that assumes all information can be located on a single mainframe and accessed by everybody in the enterprise has fallen by the wayside, and new infrastructures supporting extended or virtual enterprises and globally distributed supply chains are becoming increasingly vital to successful, competitive organizations. Functions, data, and information must be made be available to all without regard to location, accessibility, or the ability to view in a native format. This book is a result of a conference, which brought together a number of leading experts from around the world that work on topics related to the design, implementation, and use of information infrastructures for manufacturing. These experts presented their views on the state of the art, and on a wide variety of topics related to the title. The topics range from the establishment of a generic enterprise framework, which can be used for the design of a supporting information infrastructure to details of how geometric surfaces should be merged together. Although not an exhaustive publication, we believe that the publications in this book represent the state of the art in this research is essential reading for anyone who is attempting the design or development of an information infrastructure for all aspects of Manufacturing.

Geometric modelling has been an important and interesting subject for many years from the purely mathematical and computer science viewpoint, and also from the standpoint of engineering and various other applications, such as CAD/CAM, entertainment, animation, and multimedia. This book focuses on the interaction between the theoretical foundation of geometric modelling and practical applications in CAD and related areas. Geometric Modelling: Theoretical and Computational Basis towards Advanced CAD Applications starts with two position papers, discussing basic computational theory and practical system solutions. The well-organized seven review papers give a systematic overview of the current situation and deep insight for future research and development directions towards the reality of shape representation and processing. They discuss various aspects of important issues, such as geometric computation for space search and shape generation, parametric modelling, feature modelling, user interface for geometric modelling, geometric modelling for the Next Generation CAD, and geometric/shape standard. Other papers discuss features and new research directions in geometric modelling, solid modeling, free-form surface modeling, intersection calculation, mesh modeling and reverse engineering. They cover a wide range of geometric modelling issues to show the problem scope and the technological importance. Researchers interested in the current status of geometric modelling research and developments will find this volume to be an essential reference.

Theory and practice of tolerances are very important for designing and manufacturing engineering artifacts on a rational basis. Tolerance specifies a degree of "discrepancy" between an idealized object and its physical realization. Such discrepancy inevitably comes into our product realization processes because of practical cost consideration or our inability to fully control manufacturing processes. Major product and production characteristics which are affected by tolerances are product quality and cost. For achieving high precision machines tight tolerance specification is necessary, but this will normally increase product cost. In order to optimally compromise the conflicting requirements of quality and cost, it is essential to take into account of the total product life cycle throughout product planning, design, manufacturing, maintenance and recycling. For example, in order to construct durable products under severe working conditions, low sensitivity of product functionality with respect to tolerances is required. In future, re-use of components or parts will become important, and tolerance synthesis with respect to this aspect will be an interesting future research topics.

On the verge of the global information society, enterprises are competing for markets that are becoming global and driven by customer demand, and where growing specialisation is pushing them to focus on core competencies and look for partnerships to provide products and services. Simultaneously the public demands environmentally sustainable industries and urges manufacturers to mind the whole life span of their products and production resources. Information infrastructure systems are anticipated to offer services enabling and catalyzing the strategies of manufacturing companies responding to these challenges: they support the formation of extended enterprises, the mastering of full product and process life cycles, and the digitalization of the development process. Information infrastructure systems would accommodate access to and transformation of information as required by the various authorized stakeholders involved in the life phases of products or production resources. Services should be available to select and present all relevant information for situations involving any kind of players, during any life phase of a product or artifact, at any moment and at any place.

Geometric modelling has been an important and interesting subject for many years from the purely mathematical and computer science viewpoint, and also from the standpoint of engineering and various other applications, such as CAD/CAM, entertainment, animation, and multimedia. This book focuses on the interaction between the theoretical foundation of geometric modelling and practical applications in CAD and related areas. Geometric Modelling: Theoretical and Computational Basis towards Advanced CAD Applications starts with two position papers, discussing basic computational theory and practical system solutions. The well-organized seven review papers give a systematic overview of the current situation and deep insight for future research and development directions towards the reality of shape representation and processing. They discuss various aspects of important issues, such as geometric computation for space search and shape generation, parametric modelling, feature modelling, user interface for geometric modelling, geometric modelling for the Next Generation CAD, and geometric/shape standard. Other papers discuss features and new research directions in geometric modelling, solid modeling, free-form surface modeling, intersection calculation, mesh modeling and reverse engineering. They cover a wide range of geometric modelling issues to show the problem scope and the technological importance. Researchers interested in the current status of geometric modelling research and developments will find this volume to be an essential reference.

In this global society, manufacturers compete in many ways, and information infrastructures play a critical role in ensuring the right information is available at the right time and the right place to support informed decision making. The traditional approach that assumes all information can be located on a single mainframe and accessed by everybody in the enterprise has fallen by the wayside, and new infrastructures supporting extended or virtual enterprises and globally distributed supply chains are becoming increasingly vital to successful, competitive organizations. Functions, data, and information must be made be available to all without regard to location, accessibility, or the ability to view in a native format. This book is a result of a conference, which brought together a number of leading experts from around the world that work on topics related to the design, implementation, and use of information infrastructures for manufacturing. These experts presented their views on the state of the art, and on a wide variety of topics related to the title. The topics range from the establishment of a generic enterprise framework, which can be used for the design of a supporting information infrastructure to details of how geometric surfaces should be merged together. Although not an exhaustive publication, we believe that the publications in this book represent the state of the art in this research is essential reading for anyone who is attempting the design or development of an information infrastructure for all aspects of Manufacturing.

On the verge of the global information society, enterprises are competing for markets that are becoming global and driven by customer demand, and where growing specialisation is pushing them to focus on core competencies and look for partnerships to provide products and services. Simultaneously the public demands environmentally sustainable industries and urges manufacturers to mind the whole life span of their products and production resources. Information infrastructure systems are anticipated to offer services enabling and catalyzing the strategies of manufacturing companies responding to these challenges: they support the formation of extended enterprises, the mastering of full product and process life cycles, and the digitalization of the development process. Information infrastructure systems would accommodate access to and transformation of information as required by the various authorized stakeholders involved in the life phases of products or production resources. Services should be available to select and present all relevant information for situations involving any kind of players, during any life phase of a product or artifact, at any moment and at any place.

Rapid Product Development is a spectrum of integrated actlYllles from initial requirements through research & development, design, simulation, modeling, analysis, prototyping, testing, production, deployment, training, maintenance, repair, disposal and recycling, along with many other intermediate and supporting elements such as quality, reliability, information integration and supporting infrastructures. This term distinguishes leading edge manufacturing technologies, processes, information systems and management practices from their more conventional predecessors in traditional manufacturing systems. The increased speed and flexibility of the new rapid product development processes correspond to greatly reduced time to market for new products, by changing the basic nature of product realization. It is therefore necessary to take account of aspects such as technology integration, cost, quality and time management, team work and business process organization and the supporting functions of data processing, to guarantee the rapid development of innovative products. Key technologies for Rapid Product Development include such topics as Rapid Prototyping, New Generative Manufacturing Methods, Design and Information Management, Virtual Prototyping and Reverse Engineering. This book is a collection of relevant papers which are related with these topics. It contains invited papers for technical trends of Rapid Product Development, and it also serves as a basis for further advanced researches.

Theory and practice of tolerances are very important for designing and manufacturing engineering artifacts on a rational basis. Tolerance specifies a degree of "discrepancy" between an idealized object and its physical realization. Such discrepancy inevitably comes into our product realization processes because of practical cost consideration or our inability to fully control manufacturing processes. Major product and production characteristics which are affected by tolerances are product quality and cost. For achieving high precision machines tight tolerance specification is necessary, but this will normally increase product cost. In order to optimally compromise the conflicting requirements of quality and cost, it is essential to take into account of the total product life cycle throughout product planning, design, manufacturing, maintenance and recycling. For example, in order to construct durable products under severe working conditions, low sensitivity of product functionality with respect to tolerances is required. In future, re-use of components or parts will become important, and tolerance synthesis with respect to this aspect will be an interesting future research topics.