A Dynamic Product Model

Abstract

The project work described in this paper is a part of the ESPRIT VEGA Project. It is related to two companion papers issued in this conference proceedings. ‘Product Data Model for Interoperability in an Distributed Environment’ (Junge and Liebich. 1997, this volume) and ‘The VEGA Platform’ (Junge, Koethe, Schulz, Zarli, Bakkeren. 1997, this volume) are describing the technological basis for an application modeled to capture and convert the working environment of architects and building engineers, in short: the building design team, to an computer environment. The ESPRIT projects are increasingly forced into ‘public and private risk funding and sharing policy. This part of VEGA is explicitly directed to exploitation of the EU funded project. This can be reached by a stepwise (small steps) transition from research to commercial implementation.

This paper is demonstrating the path VEGA project partners are heading. A major orientation point is an implementation based on the following technologies:

• use of object oriented design and implementation

• use of product data modeling

• dynamic schema evolution

• use of related standards as STEP, EXPRESS, IAI’s IFC, OMG’s CORBA, WFMC’s Interfaces

• use of latest software engineering technologies as OO, COM/DCOM

• use of latest communication technologies based on Internet, Intranet, etc.