The engineering sketch pad: A solid-modeling, feature-based, web-enabled system for building parametric geometry

Within the multi-disciplinary analysis and optimization community, there is a strong need for browser-based tools that provide users with the ability to visualize and interact with complex three-dimensional configurations. This need is particularly acute when the designs involve shape- and/or feature-based optimizations. Described herein is a family of open-sources software products that provides such a capability. At the top is a browser-based system, called the Engineering Sketch Pad (ESP), which provides the user the ability to interact with a configuration by building and/or modifying the design parameters and feature tree that define the configuration. ESP is built both upon the WebViewer (which is a WebGL-based visualizer for three-dimensional configurations and data) and upon OpenCSM (which is a constructive solid modeler; it in turn is built upon the EGADS and OpenCASCADE systems). Each of these open-source software components are described as well as the interactions amongst them.