Virtual spaces to support feature-based computer aided design

Increasingly high demands placed on the product development process with respect to the shortening of development and job throughput times, the lowering of development costs and an improvement in product quality have raised the requirement for unbroken continuity in the information-technological linkage of the associated tasks into process chains. Beyond the geometrical description of the component shape, the exchange of semantic information for use in all phases of product development must be supported. To meet these requirements features can be used as semantically endowed objects that accompany the product development process from customer request throgh the product release. The essential requierement here is the ability to define and process the features in a task- and product-specific fashion and to adapt them flexibly to the chaning constraints of product development. Parametrical models generated with features support the automation of associated design, configuration and planni ng processes.