Patent ID: 8433432

Claim:
An apparatus that supports creation of assembly data indicating an assembly state of a plurality of parts, the apparatus comprising: a storage unit including computer memory and configured to store information about relative positions indicating constraint conditions among the plurality of parts, the constraint conditions concerning at least one of the relative positions and rotations of the parts; a calculating section configured to calculate information about absolute positions indicating at least one of the absolute positions and the rotations of the plurality of parts in the assembly data on the basis of the relative position information stored in the storage unit; a saving section configured to save the absolute position information calculated by the calculating section in response to input of an instruction to save the assembly state of the plurality of parts into the storage unit, wherein the saving section is configured to save the absolute position information together with identification information about the absolute position information into the storage unit; and a correcting section configured to correct, on the basis of absolute position information identified from the absolute position information stored in the storage unit by the saving section due to input of the identification information, new absolute position information that is calculated by the calculating section after the absolute position information is stored in the storage unit.