Kerry Odell, Potomac State College of West Virginia University
Rocket Center Collaborations
Since December 2007, over 30 Potomac State College of West Virginia University (PSC) students have been employed by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) Center for Advanced Systems and Technology (NCAST). These students provide a number of services for projects being conducted in support of NCAST projects and activities. The number of PSC students finding employment will continue to grow as the National Interest Security Company (NISC), an IBM company, expands its operations at the Rocket Center.
In addition to PSCs important relationship with NCAST, the College also provides a number of services or programs for other entities located at Rocket Center.
Victor Mucino, WVU, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, College of Engineering and Mineral Resources
Evaluation of STEP for Digital Preservation of Engineering Information Generated from Engineering Scenarios
Long-term preservation of engineering data of engineering design processes requires an orderly generation and archival of data through the various phases of the design process. In addition, several tools are required that can be applied as the data is produced. In order to do this, a design taxonomy is being developed based on four engineering design constructs for: geometric design, material selection, load capacity determination and system failure verification. From these constructs several generic design scenarios can evolve into four specific scenarios: technology development, subsystem replacement, troubleshooting and design evolution. Being able to map a design process into these generic scenarios allows a trace to be made of design data transaction amongst the various engineering tasks in such a way that a rationale for the design is captured and design intent is preserved. Three case scenarios have been developed thus far. The first case was the analysis and redesign of a faulty mechanical transmission, requiring a “troubleshooting” engineering scenario to be developed. The second case was the design from scratch of a cryogenic pressure vessel, resulting in a “technology development” case. The third case developed involves the redesign and a “subsystem replacement” case, specifically the replacement of the rudder of the 120’ torpedo retriever (this case will be illustrated in this presentation). A fourth case is just starting in “design evolution” in which the use of composite materials will be made for certain structural components in ships. The outcome of these various engineering scenarios is a documentation roadmap which allows the identification of STEP AP’s which are applicable to store and capture data, rationale and intent.
Overview of the Development of a STEP Smart File Browser
This presentation will describe the development of a file browser for collections of engineering data. Our browser augments the capabilities of standard file browsers by automatically discovering relationships between STEP files, such as those describing assembly-Subassembly-part hierarchical relations. The relations are visualized as a graph in order to emphasize these relations. References between STEP files, supporting documentation (such as spreadsheets and word processing documents), and scanned drawings can also be displayed.
James Mooney, Lane Department of CSEE, West Virginia University
ISO 8000: A Possible Aid to Long-Term Archiving?
This presentation will review the present and emerging capabilities of the ISO 8000 standard series and the concepts on which it is based. Although focused on data quality in business transactions, these ideas may offer help in archiving engineering project records that are not addressed by STEP standards.
Josh Lubell, NIST
Extending Library Metadata and Packaging Standards to PLM Standardization
Product data can be usefully defined as structured information about objects that are produced by industrial and business processes. In terms of information types, data formats, usage, and lifespan, product data is both complex and diverse, encompassing 3D image modeling information, dimensions, tolerances, and other model annotations, supplementary material such as test analysis, videos, datasets, and human-readable documentation. Although the metadata issues in this problem space present some unique challenges, there are valuable lessons to be learned from the library metadata and packaging standards and how they relate to product metadata. Extending the library standards to represent subsets of information from emerging product lifecycle management standards could help tame the complexity of long-term product data archival.
Ben Kassel , Naval Surface Warfare Center Carderock Division
Definition and Acquisition of Product Model Data in NAVSEA
This presentation provides an overview of an emerging policy within the Naval Sea Systems Command for the definition and acquisition of product model data and a five year program sponsored by the National Archives and Records Administration to identify the issues and explore the technology necessary to support the long term retention of weapons system information.
Rick Zuray, LOTAR
Overview of LOTAR Activities
Data preservation and reuse challenges predate computers. The introduction of computers has only added new challenges and addressed some of the old challenges. The objective of LOTAR International (LOng Term Archiving and Retrieval of Digital Data) is to develop an auditable process for the long-term archiving (LTA) of digital data, e.g. 3D CAD and PDM data. This presentation will provide an overview of LOTAR International goals and the current status of some of its initiatives.
Charlie Stirk, PDES, Inc
Overview of PDES Activities
PDES Inc. has re-established its Long-Term Data Retention (LTDR) group for industries like shipbuilding, vehicles and construction because the complementary LOTAR group is currently focused only on aviation requirements. The LTDR group is addressing the modular STEP application protocols (AP’s) for Systems Engineering, CAD, Multidisciplinary Analysis and Design, and Product Life Cycle Support (PLCS), as well as related standards. This presentation will give an update on the status, content, and major uses of these STEP AP’s.
Peter Bajcsy , National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC)
Discovery of Relationships between 2D Engineering Drawings and 3D CAD Models
This presentation will address the problem of discovering temporal and contextual relationships across document, data, and software categories of electronic records. We designed a methodology to discover unknown relationships by conducting file system and file content analyses. The work investigates specifically automation of metadata extraction from engineering drawings and storage requirements for metadata extraction. We will provide an overview of the challenges of automation and metadata representation, and describe our methodology. The methodology has been applied to extracting information from a test collection of electronic records about the Navy ship (TWR 841) currently housed in a data grid run by the US National Archives Center for Advanced Systems and Technologies (NCAST). This test collection represents a problem of unknown relationships among files that include 784 2D image drawings and 22 CAD models. The presentation will conclude with a demonstration of a prototype framework.
Paul Huang, Army Research Laboratory
Model Based Enterprise
Model Based Definition (MBD) utilizes the product model as the sole source master for the technical data required to define, manufacture, and maintain a physical item. It also forms the foundation of the modern Technical Data Package (TDP). When this is used in a Model Based Enterprise (MBE), many different disciplines will be able to reuse the TDP vs. recreating it resulting in reduction in design, manufacturing, and total ownership costs. It can also help to reduce the time to mission, both for the initial acquisition and then the sustainment of a given system. The Department of Defense ManTech program has sponsored programs that have implemented and demonstrated MBD/MBE to achieve these efficiency improvements and corresponding reduction in costs. Highlights include an overview of some of the programs which demonstrate how the modern TDP is an integral part of realizing the ultimate goal of supporting the warfighter in the timeliest and cost effective way possible.