Ontology‐based feature mapping and verification between CAD systems

Data interoperability between computer‐aided design (CAD) systems remains a major obstacle in the information integration and exchange in a collaborative engineering environment. The use of CAD data exchange standards causes the loss of design intent such as construction history, features, parameters, and constraints, whereas existing research on feature‐based data exchange only focuses on class‐level feature definitions and does not support instance‐level verification, which causes ambiguity in data exchange. In this paper, a hybrid ontology approach is proposed to allow for the full exchange of both feature definition semantics and geometric construction data. A shared base ontology is used to convey the most fundamental elements of CAD systems for geometry and topology, which is to both maximize flexibility and minimize information loss. A three‐branch hybrid CAD feature model that includes feature operation information at the boundary representation level is constructed. Instance‐level feature information in the form of the base ontology is then translated to local ontologies of individual CAD systems during the rule‐based mapping and verification process. A combination of the Ontology Web Language (OWL) and Semantic Web Rule Language (SWRL) is used to represent feature classes and properties and automatically classify them by a reasoner in the target system, which requires no knowledge about the source system.