Method and system for management of heterogeneous assemblies

A computer-readable medium containing software for detecting a change in a constituent component of a heterogeneous assembly operated upon by a target CAD system, the software comprising instructions for executing the steps of:

• providing a master geometry representation of the heterogeneous assembly, the master geometry representation being in a target format associated with the target CAD system;
• providing means indicative of a change in the constituent component of the heterogeneous assembly, the constituent component being represented in a source format foreign to the target CAD system;
• and
• monitoring the means indicative of a change to detect a change in the constituent component of the heterogeneous assembly.

A target format representation of a heterogeneous assembly having a constituent geometric object represented in a source format, said representation comprising

• a master geometry representation of the heterogeneous assembly, the master geometry representation being in the target format;
• a change flag indicative of a change in the constituent geometric object;
• a mapping table for establishing a correspondence between a source format representation of the constituent geometric object and a target format representation of the constituent geometric object;
• and
• a translated image model derived from the mapping table, the translated image model including a translation of the source format representation of the constituent geometric object into a target format representation of the constituent geometric object.

A method of detecting a change in a constituent component of a heterogeneous assembly operated upon by a target CAD system, the method comprising the steps of:

• providing a master geometry representation of the heterogeneous assembly, the master geometry representation being in a target format associated with the target CAD system;
• providing a change flag indicative of a change in the constituent component of the heterogeneous assembly, the constituent component being represented in a source format foreign to the target CAD system;
• monitoring the change flag to detect a change in the constituent component of the heterogeneous assembly;
• and
• providing a geometry database linked to the target CAD system for storing the constituent component.

A data processing system for detecting a change in a constituent component of a heterogeneous assembly representative of a geometric structure, the data processing system comprising:

• a first CAD system for operating upon the heterogeneous assembly, the first CAD system having an associated first format;
• a second CAD system for modifying the constituent component of the heterogeneous assembly, the second CAD system having an associated second format different from the first format;
• an associative topology bus linking the first CAD system to the second CAD system, the associative topology bus having means for detecting a change in the constituent component by the second CAD system;
• and
• a geometry database linked to the first and second CAD system by the associative topology bus for storage of the constituent component.