Computer drawing system

A computer-implemented method for processing a drawing document generated by a computer aided design system, the method comprising:

• processing a drawing document to display a view of a design model on a computer display terminal, the drawing document comprising:
• a plurality of image elements that can be rendered to display the view, and
• tag data associating each image element with at least one of a plurality of components of the design model, at least two of the components being specified in separately stored data documents;
• receiving a user input selecting one of the image elements;
• receiving supplementary data;
• and
• linking the supplementary data to a first model component based on the tag data associating the selected image element with the first model component.

A computer program apparatus comprising a media storing instructions to configure a computer to process a design model generated by a computer aided design system, the instructions to process the design model comprising instructions to:

• access model data comprising a plurality of separately stored data documents detailing construction of the design model from a plurality of components;
• process the model data to generate a first plurality of image elements representing a first projected view of the design model and to generate first tag data associating each of the first image elements with at least one of the plurality of components;
• and
• store the first image elements and the first tag data in a first drawing document.

A computer program apparatus comprising a media storing instructions to configure a computer to process a drawing document generated by a computer aided design system, the instructions to process the drawing document comprising instructions to:

• process the drawing document to display a view of a design model on a computer display terminal, the drawing document comprising:
• a plurality of image elements that can be rendered to display the view, and
• tag data associating each image element with at least one of a plurality of components of the design model, at least two of the components being specified in separately stored data documents;
• receive a user input selecting one of the image elements;
• receive supplementary data;
• and
• link the supplementary data to a first model component based on the tag data associating the selected image element with the first model component.

A computer aided design system comprising:

• a processor operatively coupled to a data storage system, the data storage system comprising a design model stored as a plurality of separately stored data documents;
• and
• a data storage memory operatively coupled to the processor and comprising instructions to configure the processor to:
• process the design model by accessing the plurality of separately stored data documents and generating a first plurality of image elements representing a first projected view of the design model and by generating first tag data associating each of the first image elements with at least one of the plurality of components stored in the data storage system;
• and
• store the first image elements and the first tag data in a first drawing document.

A computer aided design system comprising:

• a processor operatively coupled to a data storage system, the data storage system comprising a stored drawing document, the drawing document comprising a plurality of image elements that can be rendered to display a view of a design model and tag data associating each image element with at least one of a plurality of components of the design model, at least two of the components being specified in different data documents;
• and
• a data storage memory operatively coupled to the processor and comprising instructions to configure the processor to:
• process the drawing document to display a view of the design model on a computer display terminal;
• receive a user input selecting one of the image elements;
• receive supplementary data;
• and
• link the supplementary data to a first model component based on tag data associating the selected image element with the first model component.