Patent ID: 8666702

Claim:
A computing device to generate design drawings for design variants that are assembled from components of a modular system, comprising: a memory storing a first data structure to store the components of the modular system, wherein each component includes a quantity of features, and wherein design variants of the modular system include different types of the same components, different numbers of components, different placement of components, different combinations of components, or different components; a second data structure to store component position numbers, wherein each of a plurality of the component position numbers identifies a first component of the first data structure and defines a use of the first component with a second component of the first data structure, the second component also identified by a component position number, wherein at least one component is assignable to each of the component position numbers, and each design variant is describable by assignment of the components of the modular system of the first data structure to component position numbers of the second data structure; and a third data structure to store one or more rules, wherein each rule is to set each of the first and second components of the component position numbers in a spatial relationship, and wherein at least one spatial relationship is selected from a group consisting of the following: congruent, parallel, perpendicular, tangential, concentric, at a distance, at an angle, aligned, or counter-aligned; a configurator to provide selectable components having component position numbers and being associated with the modular system, the configurator to further receive selection of components from the provided selectable components for a design variant; and an assembly module to automatically, in response to receiving the selection of the components for the design variant of the modular system, cause the computing device to select the rules from the third data structure that correspond to the component position numbers for the selected components, assemble the components to form a design drawing of the design variant according to relationships defined by the component numbers and the spatial relationships defined in the selected rules, and to cause a design drawing of the assembled design variant to be displayed according to the selected rules.