Patent ID: 7755622

Claim:
A method to convert a three-dimensional representation of a wire harness to a two-dimensional representation, comprising: automatically computing, using a computer, an optimal viewing angle of the three-dimensional representation of the wire harness, the viewing angle being such that minimizes overlap in two dimensions; projecting the three-dimensional representation of the wire harness in two dimensions using the computed viewing angle; wherein the three-dimensional representation of the wire harness includes a plurality of branches comprising a main backbone and multiple sub-branches coupled to the main backbone, and the method further includes determining which branches form the main backbone; and wherein determining the main backbone includes: a) assigning a degree to each node based on the number of branches coupled to that node; b) decrementing all degrees that are assigned a “1” to a “0”; c) removing any branches with a node having a degree of “0”; d) decrementing all nodes based on the number of branches removed from the node; and e) re-performing (a)-(d) until the number of nodes with degree “1” equals two.