Scalable Integration of Commercial File Types in Multi-User CAD

Current commercial computer aided design (CAD) tools limit a parallel engineering design workflow by only allowing a single user in the CAD model at a time. The NSF Center for e-Design at BYU has recently developed multi-user CAD tools which enable a parallel design workflow by allowing multiple users to simultaneously contribute to the same CAD model in real time. The combined challenges of consistent distributed naming and robust interoperation with commercial file types have created scalability and usability issues for previous multi-user CAD implementations. This paper presents persistent naming methods and a file-based architecture that address these challenges. An implementation of these methods shows that multi-user design within commercial CAD is increasingly scalable.