Geometric modeling of spatial constraints: objectives, methods and solid-modeling requirements

Robust Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) technology requires availability of informationally- complete models for all parts of a design-project including spatial constraints. This is the subject of the present investigation, leading to a new model for spatial constraints, the ``virtual solid'', which generalizes a similar concept used by Sapidis and Theodosiou to model ``required free-spaces'' in plants [14]. The present research focuses on the solid-modeling aspects of the virtual-solid methodology, and derives new solid-modeling problems (related to object definition and to object processing), whose robust treatment is a prerequisite for developing efficient models for complex spatial constraints.