3D Shape Searching for Manufacturing Applications

Principal Investigator: Afzal Godil
(301) 975-4262
afzal.godil@nist.gov 

Objective:
To continue work on the 3D Shape searching technology for searching for parts across manufacturering supply chains.

Background:
Large numbers of 3D CAD models are created by manufacturing companies and stored in local repositories. Searching for parts across the manufacturer’s supply chain efficiently is a very important issue. According to AutoDesk there are over 20 Billion CAD models, compared to 6 Billion people. Different estimates by experts put the number of unique designs of parts at around 60 to 800 Billion. Even a single Boeing 787 aircraft has more than 3 million unique parts from different part suppliers. Using 3D shape searching early in the design cycle can detect duplicate parts and can locate similar parts manufactured across your supply chain. Hence, there will be cost saving associated with parts reuse by identifying and reuse of the existing designs and manufacturing processes. Shape similarity for 3D parts can also recommend the optimum manufacturing process and also provide the cost estimation of manufacturing of parts.  While there have been advances in the retrieval of information from text data, these methods simply can’t be extended to 3D objects. Search of 3D object models require surface-based or volume-based features to effectively characterize the shape, semantics, content and topology.