CoConut: computer support for concurrent design using STEP

As open CAD design environments have gained more and more importance in the last few years, international efforts have begun to define architectures and environments for new open CAD systems. This paper presents the major concepts and components of the CoConut environment in the context of a mechanical CAD scenario. CoConut provides an open environment for two major aspects of CAD: the integration of already-existing applications and data into the environment, and the integration of new techniques into a CAD environment. To reach these goals, CoConut provides an open architecture and different integration strategies based on an underlying object-oriented model and on the adaptation of international standardization efforts. Taking real production environments into account, CoConut is designed to work in heterogeneous computing environments