Method and apparatus for reusing subparts of one mechanical design for another mechanical design

An article of manufacture comprising:

• a recordable medium having recorded thereon a plurality of programming instructions for use to program an apparatus to enable the apparatus to be able to replicate a sub-graph from a first dependent graph of a first mechanical design of a computer aided design (CAD) tool, the first dependent graph having modeling information of the first mechanical design and the replicated sub-graph having modeling information of a subpart of the first mechanical design, and to be able to merge the replicated sub-graph into a second dependent graph of a second mechanical design of the CAD tool to reuse the subpart of the first mechanical design in the second mechanical design.

An apparatus comprising:

• at least one storage medium having stored therein a first and a second plurality of programming instructions;
• and
• at least one processor coupled to the at least on storage medium to execute the first plurality of programming instructions to replicate a sub-graph from a first dependent graph of a first mechanical design of a computer aided design (CAD) tool, the first dependent graph having modeling information of the first mechanical design and the replicated sub-graph having modeling information of a subpart of the first mechanical design, and to execute the second plurality of programming instructions to merge the replicated sub-graph into a second dependent graph of a second mechanical design of the CAD tool to reuse the subpart of the first mechanical design in the second mechanical design.

An apparatus comprising:

• means to replicate a subset of a first modeling representation of a first mechanical design responsive to instructions identifying a subpart of the first mechanical design of a computer aided design (CAD) tool;
• and
• means to merge the replicated subset into a second modeling representation of a second mechanical design of the CAD tool to reuse the identified subpart of the first mechanical design in the second mechanical design.

In a computer system, a method of operation comprising the steps of:

• replicating a subset of a first modeling representation of a first mechanical design of a computer aided design (CAD) tool responsive to instructions identifying a subpart of the first mechanical design;
• and
• merging the replicated subset into a second modeling representation of a second mechanical design of the CAD tool to reuse the identified subpart of the first mechanical design in the second mechanical design.