STEP-based quality diagnosis of shape data of product models for collaborative e-engineering

Collaborative e-engineering requires different digital tools in different phases of the product development process. However, an interoperability error makes product model data unusable when applying digital tools. Movement toward concurrent and collaborative e-engineering drives the need for assuring the quality of the communicated product model data. In this paper, a quality diagnosis method of the shape data of a neutral file based on a product model including curved surface described in formal language is proposed. The proposed method is based on the standard for the exchange of product data (STEP) technology using EXPRESS-X, which is the mapping language between STEP model data. In order to help create the data quality diagnostics criteria for geometric errors easily, the classification of the quality criteria based on their geometric algorithms is also proposed. The certification data model of the product data is proposed to avoid a tedious checking procedure in the receiver system. Some of the quality criteria, which were published by the Strategic Automotive Product Data Standards Industry Group (SASIG), are rewritten in formal language and applied to the data sets including the error set provided by the Japan Automotive Manufacturers Association (JAMA) to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed diagnostics method. The approach based on the formal language is extensible for any phase of the product development process by rewriting the criteria. Not all SASIG criteria have actually been implemented. Future work is to rewrite all SASIG–PDQ criteria into EXPRESS-X schemas.