Constructing Web-Based Object-Oriented Design Support System for Collaborative Ship Modeling

Abstract

Multidiscipline three-dimensional (3D) design tools are utilized by most advanced shipyards in the world to gain both competitive advantage and productivity. While deadlines become shorter and shorter, the complexity of modern commercial vessels increases steadily; therefore, it is imperative for the marine industry to integrate diverse engineering information systems. 3D models are repetitiously constructed mainly because specified requirements on different design stages are time-consuming. In order to supersede costly point-to-point integration or system-specific integration that have been used, much attention has been paid to develop the advanced and open platform to not only codevelop parts by designers at different geographical locations, coordinate dissimilar applications and application components, but facilitate connectivity and the overall communication process to provide the end user with integrated and consistent data. This paper describes the object-oriented data-sharing collaborative design support system (DSS). DSS is proposed to speed up the construction of 3D models by the Internet technologies to translate product data and further be capable of providing reasonable model configurations of XML descriptions and sharing Web Services on the Internet to comply with shipyards' specific strategies.