Data Protection Methods in CAX Applications

This work presented a method for multi-user CAx editing includes receiving a model of an engineering object, receiving a request to present a rendering of the model of the engineering object to a user on a display, determining viewing privileges of the user for the model of the engineering object, and rendering only those portions of the model of the engineering object on the display for which the user has viewing privileges.

Among large corportations outsourcing various portions of CAD design projects (e.g. engine design for Pratt & Whitney) where components of the design contain sensitive or perhaps even Top Secret information, companies might wish to collaboratively work on parts simultaneously (multi-user CAx) while hiding these privet portions to users with lower priviledges. This was an interesting thought experiement on how to conceal information and what kinds of information might want to be concealed.

This work was submitted as a patent application.