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C00002 00002 The preparation of drawings to control the construction of
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The preparation of drawings to control the construction of
buildings and the production of smaller objects is an important
source of delay and expense. Besides drawings themselves, bills of
material, instructions for numerically controlled machine tools and
automatic wiring machines are becoming of increasing importance.
All these normally involve a different group of people from the
engineers and architects who design the products. Modification of
drawings once produced is also very expensive especially since the
modifications have to be made by different people than originally
made them. Anything that can reduce the cost and delay of drawing
will increase the promptness with which society can respond to its
technological problems. The current energy crisis illustrates the
fact that we often don't recognize problems until they are so acute
that fast action is required.
Many computer aids to design have been developed since the
late 1950s and have met with a mixed reception. Some have met with
complete acceptance and are the standard way of doing things in
particular industries. For example, computer aids to the
preparation of integrated circuit masks are in wide use. Other
proposals have not proved cost-effective, because the equipment was
too expensive or because the system was too inflexible. Our own
experience with computer aids to the production of drawings has ben
good. The system developed here by Richard Helliwell for making
logic diagrams, printed circuit board layouts, instructions for
automatic wiring machines and board drilling machines is in
continuous use here and parts of it have been adopted by MIT and by
Digital Equipment Corporation. Part of the success of the system is
based on the fact that it operates in the context of a general
time-sharing system with all of its facilities and doesn't represent
an independent investment in hardware.
Our proposed research will advance the art in the following
respects:
1. The direct description of three-dimensional objects will
be more easier and more flexible than the present technique of
making two dimensional drawings. Such descriptions will require
less change when design is changed and can produce whatever views
are required when requirements change.
2. The three-dimensional descriptions will be more
convenient for generating information for controlling machine tools
and automatic assembly systems.
3. The resulting system will run on a standard time-sharing
system for the PDP-10 (certainly on TENEX and probably on TOPS-10
also). An inducstrial user of the system will require only suitable
display terminals which can be connected to the computer by
telephone. This will reduce by an order of magnitude the capital
cost of computer aided design, since most of the present systems run
on dedicated computers.
We are not yet in communication with potential users of this
system, but we anticipate interest comparable to that already shown
in our logic and circuit design system.
This work is related to other activities of the Stanford
Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, especially to the work in
automated assembly which needs to start from descriptions of the
objects being assembled. The ability of the proposed system to
handle motions of the objects as well as static descriptions will
aid in the development of the "automation assembly language". It is
also related to a proposed project aimed at an automated machine
shop.
The Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory has a
management structure suited to this kind of project. Both the
Director, John McCarthy, and the Executive Officer, Lester Earnest,
have experience in managing such projects and a special interest in
this one.
Successful completion of the research will make available
programs that will make design faster and cheaper.