NSF Award
8560930
In computer-aided design (CAD) systems that have been installed, the problem of converting existing paper drawings into an equivalent electronically-stored form within the CAD system has proven difficult to resolve. CAD systems would be much more effective if there existed an automatic method to convert the many existing drawings into electronic forms, in which the information on the original drawings was not lost. Research is in progress to create a system that would digitize a drawing then interpret the information stored on the drawing. A computerized expert system will be created to perform this task. For each application field, the expert system will use rules and knowledge about drawings in that particular field to translate the data into a usable form. Vexcel strategies will be developed that will result in an acceptable throughput rate at an acceptable error rate--both essential requirements for any commercial system.
