An Electronic Product Catalog
The advantages of using an electronic product catalog instead of a traditional paper one have been recognized by many people. Some vendors now offer electronic product catalog on CD-ROM or even on the internet. However, most of these catalogs are somewhat affected by paper catalogs and have not used computer technology to the full extent. We try to build an electronic product catalog based on advanced database, networking, expert system, multimedia technologies. It provides product information as well as guidance in selection. In addition, an effective query engine for selection in different levels is implemented. The information is stored and presented in most effective formats, e.g., data, text, image, CAD file, animation, etc. Some special formats are adopted to make data readily used by certain commercial computer-aided design or analysis tools. We build the user interface on the World Wide Web (WWW) to facilitate its access and downloading, which can also be kept up-to-date more easily. Using this catalog, designers can find an optimized solution cost and time effectively.
The prototype catalog is developed for motors, which are typical Mechatronics products. However, the basic structure should be applicable to most products. Motor selection is an interesting area where off-the-shelf component selection is critical and a difficult problem due to its rapidly changing technology and crossing departmental expertise.
The main research issues addressed are: effective query engine implementation combining database and expert system technology; product modeling that includes different levels of product information, from simple data to function representations using various media formats; user interface function requirements for a product catalog. These problems are analyzed under current technology restriction with proposals for future improvement.
[ Slide show | WWW interface | Multimedia Tutorial ]
Zhijie Huang,8/95