The software and hardware requirements of the environment are the backbone for this project. We intend to select parts of the system implementation and study the possibility of hardwiring them. There has been considerable effort and experience in VLSI chip design [6,13] and one of the sub-problems would be to study the need and efficiency of making customized chips. The DEDS model, as an automaton, is very suitable for Path Programmable Logic (PPL) implementation. A number of the visual sensing algorithms could be successfully implemented in PPL, saving considerable computing time. Integrated circuits for CAGD surface manipulation is an effort that is already underway. We intend to investigate a new area: the possibility of implementing the DEDS part of the system in integrated circuitry.
There is a lot of interfacing involved in constructing the inspection and reverse engineering environments under consideration. Using multi-language object-based communication and control methodology between the three major components (Sensing, CAD and CAM) is essential. We intend to use a common shared database for storing data about the geometric model and the rules governing the interaction of the different phases in the reproduction and inspection paradigms [19,28].