Content-based retrieval of technical drawings
by Manuel J. Fonseca, Alfredo Ferreira, Joaquim A. Jorge
International Journal of Computer Applications in Technology (IJCAT), Vol. 23, No. 2/3/4, 2005

Abstract: This paper presents a new approach to classify, index and retrieve technical drawings by content. Our work uses spatial relationships, shape geometry and high-dimensional indexing mechanisms to retrieve complex drawings from CAD databases. This contrasts with conventional approaches which use mostly textual metadata. Creative designers and draftspeople often re-use data from previous projects, publications and libraries of ready-to-use components. Usually, retrieving these drawings is a slow, complex and error-prone endeavour. Unfortunately, the widespread use of CAD systems, while making it easier to create drawings, exacerbates this problem, insofar as the number of projects grows enormously, without providing adequate searching mechanisms to support retrieving these documents. We describe an approach that supports automatic indexation of technical drawing databases through drawing simplification, feature extraction and efficient algorithms to index large amounts of data. We describe in detail our classification process and present results from usability tests on our prototype.

Online publication date: Sun, 13-Mar-2005

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