Patent Document ID: 8521478
Application ID: 12060826

Base Claim:
1. A method for delineating rigid bodies in a computer-aided design (CAD) model, the method comprising: analyzing the CAD model to identify one or more rigid bodies based on the number of relative degrees of freedom between any two geometric bodies included in the CAD model, wherein each identified rigid body includes one or more geometric bodies that have no degrees of freedom relative to any of the other geometric bodies included in the rigid body; receiving an instruction to process a first identified rigid body; creating a graphic style table that includes a listing of available graphic styles to apply to the one or more identified rigid bodies in the CAD model; selecting a first graphic style by analyzing assembly data associated with the first identified rigid body to determine whether at least one geometric body of the first identified rigid body is associated with a user-defined grounded state; if at least one geometric body of the first identified rigid body is associated with the user-defined grounded state, then selecting the first graphic style based on the assembly data, or if no geometric bodies of the first identified rigid body are associated with the user-defined grounded state, then selecting the first graphic style from the graphic style table; and applying the first graphic style to each of the one or more geometric bodies included in the first identified rigid body.

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Claim 2:
2. The method of claim 1 , wherein selecting the first graphic style based on the assembly data comprises selecting a glass or transparent graphic style to apply to the first identified rigid body.