Design for assembly evaluation of orientation difficulty features

Abstract: "In support of the effort to bring downstream issues to the attention of the designer as parts take shape, an analysis system is being built to extract certain features relevant to assembly processes, such as the dimensions, shape, and symmetry of an object. These canbe applied to a model of the downstream process to evaluate the object's difficulty of handling and assemblability. In this paper, we will focus on the acquisition phase of the assembly process and employ a model of design for assembly (DFA) evaluation to quantify factors in this process. The capabilities of a non-homogeneous, non-manifold boundary representation geometric modeling system are used with an Index of Difficulty (ID) that represents the dexterity and time required to assemble a product.A series of algorithms based on the high-level abstractions of loop and link are developed to extract orientation difficulty feature data forming a DFA critic. Examples of the [sic] testing the robustness of the algorithms are given. Problems related to nearly symmetric outlines are also discussed."