Building and using object-oriented frameworks for CAD rapid prototyping

Considering that computer-aided-design (CAD) based technology is advancing, it is surprising how time-consuming and complex applications are. If there is no other new way to help designers, then not only will the whole design process become more difficult, but the quality of the final product will not be promising. Also, generating prototype designs in the early stages of development tends to reduce the errors that might have lasting impacts on the reliability and cost of the final product. To achieve this, new methods will be needed in the CAD world to extend reuse technology to the design process. We propose an OO based rapid prototyping framework for the CAD world to facilitate rapid prototyping and storage for future reuse. During the design (reuse) process, toolboxes are selected automatically/semi-automatically for the CAD development process. Thus, tool election, integration, and adoption problems can be dealt with in the design process instead of a separate development process. This also means that with this OO design framework, tool reuse and design data reuse can be automatically integrated into the design process, providing a new method for the whole CAD development process.