CyberEye: An Internet-Enabled Environment to Support Collaborative Design,’’ Concurrent Engineering

Abstract: The focus of this paper is to address two key issues in the development of an Internet-enabled collaborative design environ-ment. The first is concerned with 3D-models display and manipulation on the Internet; the second with collaboration and coordination in communications across a team(s) through the Internet. A novel approach is studied in which Java3D technology is explored in achieving 3D-models display and manipulation on the Internet; meanwhile, state-of-the-art IT technologies (e.g., ASP, Java Servlet and Windows Socket) are applied to support both asynchronous and synchronous distributed interactions. As a result, the core of an Internet-enabled, platform-independent environment, referred to as CyberEye, is further constructed to support distributed collaborative design, which consists of three function suites, namely, Product Visualization Module (PVM), Product Information Management Module (PIMM), and Team Management Module (TMM). As such, the implementation of multidisciplinary team engineering over the Internet can be facilitated and supported. Key Words: collaborative design, 3D display and manipulation, asynchronous distributed interaction, synchronous distributed interaction, IT tools. 1. I ntroduction Concurrent engineering has widely been regarded as a pre-ferried alternative approach to engineered product develop-ment, replacing the traditional &dquo;over-the-wall&dquo; approach fo