SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR IDENTIFYING CRASH SOURCES IN A CAD ENVIRONMENT

• US 20100251028A1
• Filed: 03/03/2010
• Published: 09/30/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 05/01/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Auto PREP LLC
• Original Assignee: Auto PREP LLC
• Inventors: Schaeffer, Phillip M., Reghetti, Joseph P.
• Granted Patent: US 8,600,706 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 714/39
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 30/13 Architectural design, e.g. computer-aided architectural design [CAAD] related to design of buildings, bridges, landscapes, production plants or roads

Abstract

Systems and methods that automatically identify causes of errors during one or more CAD processes, such as while binding external reference drawings to a host drawing and/or batch comparing sets of multiple drawings. In certain examples, a first session of a CAD program can be used to track potential crash occurrences during a second CAD program'"'"'s processing of a set of drawings and dynamically replace corrupt drawings and/or broken references with blank (proxy) drawings so that the desired process can complete. Whenever the first CAD session detects a potential error event, such as when the second CAD session is interrupted for a particular length of time, the first CAD session can log the error, close the second session, and/or continue the desired process with a new CAD session.

Claims

1. A method for processing a batch of computer aided design (CAD) drawings, the method comprising:

opening a first session of a CAD application;

storing an identification of a first CAD drawing in a first data structure;

initiating a second session of the CAD application to process the first CAD drawing, wherein the first CAD drawing comprises a plurality of references to a plurality of external drawings associated with the first CAD drawing; and

processing the plurality of references to the plurality of external drawings of the first CAD drawing, wherein said processing comprises,

selecting one of the plurality of references,

storing in the first data structure an identification of the external drawing corresponding to the selected reference,

attempting with the second session to link the corresponding external drawing to the first CAD drawing,

monitoring with the first session said attempting to link by the second session,

when said attempting to link by the first session is successful, clearing the first data structure of at least the identification of the external drawing corresponding to the selected reference and continuing to process, with the second session, another one of the plurality of references if all the plurality of references have not been processed,

when said attempting to link by the first session is not successful,

storing in a second data structure, with the first session, the identification of the first CAD drawing and the identification of the external drawing corresponding to the selected reference, and

closing the second session of the CAD application.

2. The method of claim 1, additionally comprising, when said attempting to link by the first session is not successful, replacing the external drawing corresponding to the selected reference with a blank CAD drawing.

3. The method of claim 2, additionally comprising, following said replacing, initiating another session of the CAD application to process any of the plurality of references that were not processed by the second session.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein said monitoring by the first session comprises determining if the second session is inactive for more than a predetermined time period.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the predetermined time period comprises at least ten seconds.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein said monitoring by the first session comprises determining if a predetermined event is performed by the second session.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the predetermined event comprises issuing a command to display a window on a user interface.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein said attempting to link comprises an instruction to bind the corresponding external drawing to the first CAD drawing.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein said attempting to link comprises an instruction to insert the corresponding external drawing into the first CAD drawing.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the first data structure comprises a text file.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the first session of the CAD application comprises a blank session with no CAD drawing being processed by the first session.

12. A system for processing a batch of computer aided design (CAD) drawings, the system comprising:

at least one storage device configured to store a plurality of CAD drawings;

a first instance of a CAD application executing on at least one computing device;

a first data structure configured to store an identification of a first one of the plurality of CAD drawings, wherein the first CAD drawing comprises references to a plurality of external drawings associated with the first CAD drawing;

a second instance of the CAD application initiated by the first instance of the CAD application to process the first CAD drawing by attempting to individually link each of the referenced external drawings to the first CAD drawing, wherein the second instance of the CAD application is further configured to,

store in the first data structure an identification of each referenced external drawing to be linked prior to attempting to individually link the referenced external drawing, and

remove from the first data structure the identification of the referenced external drawing after successfully linking the referenced external drawing to the first CAD drawing;

wherein the first instance of the CAD application is further configured to monitor the second instance of the CAD application to detect an error event during said processing of the first CAD drawing by the second instance of the CAD application that interrupts said processing by the second instance of the CAD application,

and wherein the first instance of the CAD application is configured to, upon detection of the error event, store to a second data structure the identification of the referenced external drawing stored in the first data structure at the time the error event was detected.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein said attempting to individually link comprises attempting to bind the referenced external drawings to the first CAD drawing.

14. The system of claim 12, wherein the detected error event comprises a predetermined time interval in which the second instance of the CAD application is inactive.

15. The system of claim 12, wherein the second instance of the CAD application is configured to serially attempt to link the referenced external drawings.

16. The system of claim 12, wherein the first instance of the CAD application is further configured to terminate the second instance of the CAD application after detecting the error event.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein, following the detection of the error event, the first instance of the CAD application is configured to automatically initiate a new instance of the CAD application to link a proxy drawing in place of the referenced external drawing stored in the first data structure at the time the error event was detected.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein the new instance of the CAD application is further configured to attempt to link additional referenced external drawings not processed by the second instance of the CAD application prior to the detection of the error event.

19. A system for processing a batch of computer aided design (CAD) drawings, the system comprising:

means for storing a plurality of CAD drawings to be processed;

means for executing a first session of a CAD application;

first means for storing an identification of a first CAD drawing of the plurality of CAD drawings, wherein the first CAD drawing comprises references to a plurality of external drawings associated with the first CAD drawing; and

means for initiating a second session of the CAD application to process each of the references to the plurality of external drawings, wherein said processing comprises,

selecting one of the references,

storing in said first storing means an identification of the external drawing corresponding to the selected reference,

attempting to link the corresponding external drawing to the first CAD drawing,

if said attempting to link by the first session is successful, clearing said first storing means of at least the identification of the external drawing corresponding to the selected reference and selecting another one of the references if all the references have not been processed,

if said attempting to link by the first session is not successful,

storing, with the first session, in a second means for storing, the identification of the first CAD drawing and the identification of the external drawing corresponding to the selected reference, and

closing the second session with the first session.

20. The system of claim 19, further comprising means for generating a proxy reference to replace the external drawing identified in the second storing means.