The ASME Y14.41-2003 standard for Digital Product Definition Data Practices provides for representation of design data as an entirely digital package. One central requirement of the standard is storage of all design content, especially annotations, directly in the 3D model. Companies maintaining a library of models and drawings in their chosen CAD system will benefit from being able to quickly and reliably transfer drawing annotations into 3D models. This paper describes the design and development of a prototype conversion tool that will be capable of automatically converting existing drawing annotations into ASME Y14.41-2003 compliant 3D model annotations. The paper covers the mathematical formulation used for transfer of annotations from the drawing to the 3D model and the abstract software development model for the base classes and conversion algorithm. The paper presents examples for how the conversion tool was implemented within a commercial CAD system.
