[step-manufacturing] STEP-NC and XML as standard

Wed Jun 16 18:10:19 EDT 2010

Hi Per-Arne,

We are planning to talk about Line Balancing and more open access to 
STEP-NC data in the second session tomorrow from 10:30 to Noon - Eastern 
USA time.

Bengt Olsson has set up a web site.

Others are welcome to join as well.

Martin Hardwick
Team Leader STEP-Manufacturing

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On 6/15/2010 11:11 AM, Carlsson Per-Arne wrote:
>   Hi,
> Vince have a point in his last chapter (see below); we as end-user now also need to consume the information that a STEP-NC file contain.
> Earlier (in the beginning) we was happy if we could transfer information to a NC-controller and make it produce chips. We have also shoved that many different processes can use STEP-NC as information carrier.
>
> If the express schema or file-structure is preventing us to easy access and use information for our processes defined by STEP-NC files, we do NOT get the total potential out of what STEP-NC is capable of support us with.
>
> It is time to invent how we can consume information from STEP-NC to our manufacturing environment, people and systems, to be more productive/effective. Now we have an umbrella of software from many vendors to mange this information and the trend is increasing with more systems.
>
> If it possible I can participate by phone or "net meeting" on Thursday before lunch (your time) if there are time for discussion or questions.
>
>
>
> Best regards / Med vänlig hälsning,
> P-A Carlsson
> _________________________________________________
> Per-Arne Carlsson
> Volvo Information Technology AB
> Dept 9511, Geo. loc. VAKV-D1
> SE-405 08 Gothenburg, Sweden
>
> Telephone: +46 31 32 22 696
> Mobile Phone +46 73 90 22 696
> E-mail: per-arne.carlsson at volvo.com
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: step-manufacturing-bounces at steptools.com [mailto:step-manufacturing-bounces at steptools.com] On Behalf Of Vincent Marchetti
> Sent: den 14 juni 2010 05:15
> To: step-manufacturing at steptools.com
> Subject: Re: [step-manufacturing] STEP-NC and XML as standard
>
> I am Vince Marchetti and am responsible for the website (http://spri.kshell.com
> ) that Per-Arne Carlsson mentioned in his June 10 note to the group. I
> would like to add to some of the points he made.
>
> Per-Arne discussed the possibility of using XSLT to read the XML (Part
> 28) encoding of STEP files. I recall having seen a published paper on
> this approach but I cannot recall or find by searching the actual
> reference. I'm sure it's true in a theoretical way that you can do
> anything with XSLT operating on the XML encoding that you can in any
> other programming language or discipline, but this approach becomes
> difficult because of the mismatch between the information models that
> XML/XSLT are intended for and the structure of a STEP file based on an
> EXPRESS schema. XML/XSLT works well with information that is
> fundamentally hierarchical; with things (parent-nodes) containing
> other things (children-nodes) that in turn contain other things
> (grandchildren, etc). More general relations can be implemented with
> the special xml:id attribute; but built-in support is shallow (for
> example, it's tricky to have a collection of references to other
> things). On the other hand, the information is a STEP file tends to be
> a wide-open network of things (entities); there are in fact a large
> number of entities whose only information content is links
> (references) to other entities. In short, I am skeptical about the
> practicality of using XSLT to directly work with Part 28 encodings of
> files except for very basic processing (for example, finding the
> values of the "name" attribute of product entities referenced in a
> STEP file)
>
> Per-Arne mentioned the spri website, so perhaps I can detail it's
> relation to the points he made. That website demonstrates the
> feasibility of processing a STEP file by deriving a set of "views"
> from a single STEP file. In the terms of the STEP-NC files this group
> is interested in, one view might present a hierarchy of workplan -->
> working_steps -->  toolpath; another view may present working steps
> organized by geometric and manufacturing features of the workpiece,
> another view may be organized my cutting tool requirements. Each view
> is a simplified structure, with redundant content, based on the
> original STEP-NC file. The views are designed to be readily encoded as
> XML files and readily accessible with XSLT scripts. From these XML
> views it is then possible to generate specific content such as HTML
> rendering for viewing on a browser, or for entry into a database or
> other end application, moreover with XSLT you can combine, or as they
> say on the web "mash-up", the information from several views. There is
> some progress in extracting enough geometry from the STEP file to
> deliver 3D visual representations of the products in the file as X3D
> (see www.web3d.com) files, again in XML encoding.  The generation of
> these views from the original STEP file is achieved by translating
> (through a basic crank and grind C++ application) the STEP file into
> a collection of Prolog (the computer language Prolog) assertions; then
> by analysis of those assertions with the techniques of logic
> programming afforded by Prolog (see http://www.kshell.com/prolog/pages/why_prolog/
>    )
>
> I see these techniques; which consume rather than produce STEP
> content; as complementary to the valuable work of this group in
> showing how to generate STEP-NC files useful for cutting actual metal.
>
> Vince Marchetti
>
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