EAGER: Critical Assessment of Shape Retrieval Tools

This EArly-concept Grant for Exploratory Research (EAGER) project will research quantitative metrics for comparing and assessing the performance of shape retrieval tools (SRT), which have potential application in 3D search. 3D search enables a designer to search the existing store of parts that have already been manufactured to find parts with similar shapes. That store incorporates the cumulative expertise of all the designers and manufacturing engineers who worked on them and each part has a detailed 3D geometrical description, an associated manufacturer and a proven process plan that can be depended on to execute reliably, therefore greatly simplifying to process of making the needed parts. The developed measures will be used to evaluate available tools and attempt to identify their underlying strengths and weaknesses, including their retrieval accuracy and robustness.

Many industries have been transformed by sophisticated search utilities that give users easy access to services, but manufacturing services remain inaccessible and too frequently depend on expert intervention and designer-to-fabricator negotiations. The most critical tool for implementing manufacturing as a service is a user-friendly 'search engine' for locating geometrically similar parts that already have been manufactured, along with their associated manufacturers. Since those manufacturers have all the capability and knowhow needed to produce the parts, they are potentially high profit parts for suppliers and low-cost parts for customers. Interestingly, this evolutionary model has been successful in transforming most services other than manufacturing, including retailing, publishing, tax preparation, and etc. The investigator will organize and conduct special panel sessions highlighting his findings at the ASME Manufacturing Science and Engineering Conference and an appropriate Association for Computing Machinery conference.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.