The CFI (CAD Framework initiative) organization aims to providensolutions for concurrent engineering by defining a set of standardntextual specifications for interfaces that should enable ECAD toolnconsumers to incorporate tools from various vendors. The most mature ofnthese specifications is the DRPI, a programming interface whichnspecifies the data schema and functions for manipulating elementary ECADnobjects. The authors' objective was to implement the DRPI specificationnutilizing the NELSIS CAD framework. NELSIS supports a large grainednschema; there is just one entity type (called the design object) fornrepresenting the design data. Additional entities in the schema providenrelational information about the design object. In contrast, the DRPIndata schema is fine grained; all data are represented explicitly andnhomogeneously by many entities. To bridge the gap, an object manager isnrequired. The authors have coupled DRPI to NELSIS in two different ways.nThe first uses a custom-built dedicated object manager implemented in C,nand the second uses a general purpose object oriented managernimplemented in C++. The focus is on the schema mapping. The authorsnprovide suggestions for enhancing the CFI schema, and highlight thenproblems and solutions of performing the mapping. They conclude withnseveral open questions and recommendations
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