Patent ID: 7714860

Claim:
Computer-readable media having computer-executable instructions embodied thereon that, when executed, cause a computing device to perform a method of utilizing engineering data, the method comprising: obtaining engineering data in a first electronic format from a computer aided design software component, wherein the engineering data defines a plurality of objects; selecting one or more of the plurality of objects defined by the engineering data; converting the engineering data associated with the selected objects to corresponding mathematical data references in a second electronic format, said mathematical data references comprising at least one of a mathematical curve, a railed surface, and a mathematical surface, and wherein a particular corresponding object that the selected object is converted to is a result of the previously determined nature of the selected object; creating a curve set, comprising: (1) creating a point stream object from a set of ordered points, said ordered points defined by said engineering data associated with said selected objects; (2) forming vectors between adjacent sequential ordered points; (3) calculating direction angles for each of said vectors with respect to its previous vector; (4) identifying curve patterns associated with said point stream object and its associated vector direction angles; and (5) connecting terminator points and a plurality of control points for each of said identified curve patterns; transporting the corresponding mathematical data references to a 3D modeling software component; converting the transported mathematical data references to corresponding 3D modeling data via the computing device, wherein the corresponding 3D modeling data is readable by the 3D modeling software component; and generating objects from the corresponding 3D modeling data in the 3D modeling software component.