Flexible Concurrency Control for Legacy CAD to Construct Collaborative CAD Environment

Abstract

Collaborative CAD (Co-CAD) systems can be constructed based on either 3D kernel or legacy stand-alone CAD systems, which are typically commercial CAD systems such as CATIA, Pro/E and so on. Most of synchronous Co-CAD systems, especially these based on legacy stand-alone CAD systems, adopt the lock mechanism or the floor control as concurrency controls which are very restrictive and stagnant. A flexible concurrency control method is proposed to support the flexible concurrency control in Co-CAD systems based on legacy stand-alone CAD systems. At first, a model of operation relationship is proposed with special consideration for the concurrency control of these kinds of Co-CAD system. Then two types of data structure, the Collaborative Feature Dependent Graph (Co-FDG) and the Collaborative Feature Operational List (Co-FOL), are presented as the cornerstone of flexible concurrency control. Next a Flexible Concurrency Control Algorithm (FCCA) is proposed. Finally a Selective Undo/Redo Algorithm is proposed which can improve the flexibility of Co-CAD furthermore.