School of Advanced Manufacturing

and Mechanical Engineering

Robotics & Computer Integrated

Manufacturing

Components of
CAD/CAM/CAE
Systems

Hardware & Software Components

The hardware and

software enabling
interactive shape
manipulation is the
major components
comprising
CAD/CAM/CAE
systems.

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 Display Processing Unit (DPU)

The display processing unit accepts the signals

corresponding to the graphics commands, produces
electron beams, and transmits them to the proper
locations on the monitor to generate the desired image.

The display device, or monitor, functions as a screen on

which a graphical image appears,

Input Devices

Keyboard
Mouse
Space ball
Data tablet with a puck
or a stylus

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 Output Devices

Storage Devices (e.g. Floppy disk, CD, Memory Stick)

Plotters
Printers

Vector-Refresh Graphics Devices

Introduced in the mid

1960s
Composed of a display
processing unit (DPU),
a display buffer
memory, and a cathode
ray tube (CRT

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 Display Processing Unit

DPU reads the display list (the list of the codes

corresponding to the graphics commands sent from the
application program).
The display list is stored in that portion of memory
called a display buffer.
DPU generates the proper voltages across the vertical
and horizontal deflection plates so that the electron
emitted from the cathode hits the correct location on the
inside surface of the CRT.

Cross-sectional view of a cathode ray tube (CRT)

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 Screen Refresh

An image stays on the human eye about 1/30 second, so

the user will not notice the disappearance of the image
if it is redrawn within 1/30 second.
This redrawing process, called refresh, is achieved by
repeated reading of the display buffer from top to
bottom and directing the electron beam according to
each display list.

Flickering

Depending on the complexity of the image, the refresh

operation may take longer than 1/30 second.
Therefore the images drawn at the beginning of the
refresh operation disappear while some remaining
images are still being redrawn so that the whole scene
will appear to flicker.

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 Disadvantages of Vector Display

Flicker
High cost of vector-refresh

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Advantages of Vector Display

The voltages supplied to the vertical and horizontal

deflection plates can be controlled to a resolution as
fine as desired.
Thus the display device may have high resolution (e.g.,
4096 by 4096)

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 Advantages of Vector Display (cont)

Straight lines can be displayed without a jagged

appearance.
A dynamic display for animation is possible simply by
modifying the contents of the display buffer while the
display processing unit is reading each line of the
buffer and working on the refresh.

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Raster Graphics Devices

Introduced in the mid

1970s as a result of the
wide-spread availability
of television technology.
The main type of graphics
device due to their high
performance-to-price
ratio.

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 Raster Graphics Devices (cont)

The picture is simply an approximation of an image as

a group of dots, or pixels.
The sizes of the dots correspond to the resolution
desired.
The raster image is stored in the memory of the raster
graphics device, whereas the display lists corresponding
to the graphics commands are stored in the vector-
refresh device.

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Screen Refresh

As in a vector-refresh device, light emission of the

phosphors lasts only a brief time, and thus refresh is
required.
The only difference is the pattern in which the electron
beam is scanned for the refresh.

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 Advantages of Raster Display

High refresh rate

– 1/30 second for normal TV
– 1/60 to over 1/100 second for monitors

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Disadvantages of Raster Display

Lower resolution
High memory display buffer for high resolution display

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 Color Information

The raster image stored in the frame buffer may carry

color information if more than one bit is allocated for
each dot (or pixel) of the raster image.

Example of 3-bit planes

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Colors in 3-bit planes

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 Colors in 24-bit planes

256 (28) different

levels can be defined
for each color and thus
a total of 16,777,216
(224) colors can be
defined and displayed
simultaneously on the
display device.

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Distribution of phosphors

•The inside of the monitor tube is coated with

three different kinds of phosphor:
•The first one emits red light when activated
by the associated gun,
•the second one emits green, and
•the third one emits blue.

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 Distribution of phosphors

Those phosphors are distributed to form

triangles, each corresponding to one dot in the
frame buffer.

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Shadow Mask
It's possible for an electron beam to affect a
phosphor that is not associated with its gun.
For example, the gun associated with the red
phosphor might shoot at a green phosphor.

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 Shadow Mask (cont)
To prevent that from happening, a shadow mask is
positioned to ensure that each electron beam will hit only
the associated phosphor.

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HARDWARE CONFIGURATION

1. Mainframe Configuration
Operating system: Unix

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 HARDWARE CONFIGURATION

2. Engineering Workstations Configuration

Operating system: Unix

Different Computing Power

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HARDWARE CONFIGURATION

3. PC Configuration
Operating system: Microsoft Windows (95, 98, NT,
2000, XP)
Popular with small companies, especially where the
products being made are composed of small numbers of
parts of reasonable complexity.
As the distinction between personal computers and
engineering workstations becomes blurred, so does the
distinction between the second and the third
configurations.
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 SOFTWARE COMPONENTS

CAD
CAM
CAE
– FEM/FEA
– Motion Analysis (Mechanisms)
– Injection molding
– Other types of simulation

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