Finding the optimum route of ship's pipes is complicated and time-consuming process. Experience of designers is the main tool in this process. To reduce design man-hours and human errors a design expert system shell and a geometric modeling kernel is used to automate the design process.
In this paper, a framework of the intelligent CAD system for pipe auto- routing is suggested, which consists of general-purpose expert system shell and a geometric modeling kernel. The design expert system and the modeling kernel have been integrated. The CADDS5 of Computervision is used as the overall CAD environment. The Nexpert object of Neuron Data is used as the expert system shell. The CADDS5 ISSM is used as the interface that creates and modifies geometric models of pipes.
Existing algorithms for the routing problem have been analyzed. Most of them are to solve the 2-D circuit problems. Ship piping system is a complicated, large scale 3-D routing problem. Method of expert system have been used to find the route of ship pipes on the main deck.
