From the information integration point of view, design activities are the processes of the information handling. Mechanism module in DesignerSpace, like an operator, operates on the information (which can be thought as the input or output) being processed during certain design activity, as shown in Fig.3. Therefore， Mechanism is a comprehensive framework which intends to integrate more computational technologies along the whole product design process. Because of different engineering application domains involved in solving a design problem, Mechanism offers generaloperator and specialoperator. The former is proposed for general mechanical product design, such as DFX; and the latter has definite application scope and needs special design technologies, for example, blankdisc design in aircraft. Any mechanism operator is giving the constraints on design, but CAD system is needed to help construct PDMD under the constraints. Generaloperator or specialoperator is made up of three basic components: knowledgebase, algorithmbase and monitoring/debugging. The components of DFX mechanism with Process module and Resource module in DesignerSpace are described in EXPRESS-G in Fig.4.2.1 Product models and operated product model data The DFX intelligent mechanism operates on the product model data for obtaining the optimized product model data which are of DFX abilities. The product models used in DesignerSpace are structured into two levels: geometricmodel and featuremodel［11］.
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