Keywords: Boolean operations, feature-based modeling, geometric and topological representations, geometric interrogations and reasoning, computational geometry, robustness of geometric computations.
Abstract
Boolean operations and feature-based modeling are closely linked domains. For example, several, sometimes many Boolean operations are involved during a feature instantiation or modification. So Boolean combinations are tools used “inside” feature-based modeling and it is interesting to study the way to make these operations faster or less numerous by using the fact that they are dealing with features. This is the first issue this paper deals with. Symmetrically, Boolean operators may be used to combine two feature-based objects. This is interesting when they are used in genetic algorithms with the aim to create semi-automatically the product from requirements. The second part of the paper tackles the Boolean operation optimization in this specific context. This includes improving Boolean operations performances and incrementally maintaining the feature-based model of the object resulting from a Boolean operation.