With the development of the cloud computing, many services that provide a desktop environment over a network are coming into widespread use. In recent years, the demand that globalized product developments and cost reductions is increasing. This leads to a growing demand for using these services in product design and development activities, a challenge in this situation is to make 3D-CAD and CAE software available over remote desktop services of the cloud, namely Engineering Cloud. In this paper, we propose a lossy image compression method for 3D-CAD and CAE software at high compression ratio. This method extracts constant gradients by a frequency transform, which exploits the nature as artificial images in that the local variations in pixel value are constant. We demonstrate that this method achieves a 1.4 times improvement in compression ratio as compared with conventional JPEG. We also apply this method to a remote desktop system, which demonstrates that the bandwidth is reduced by 43% of JPEG case.

Recently, manufacturing defects including opens in the interconnect layers have been increasing. Therefore, a failure analysis for open faults has become important in manufacturing. Moreover, the failure analysis for open faults under BIST environment is demanded. Since the quality of the failure analysis is engaged by the resolution of locating the fault, we propose the method for locating single open fault at a stem, based on only detecting/un-detecting information on tests. Our method deduces candidate faulty stems based on the number of detections for single stuck-at fault at each fan-out branches, by performing single stuck-at fault simulation with both detecting and un-detecting tests. To improve the ability of locating the fault, the method reduces the candidate faulty stems based on the number of detections for multiple stuck-at faults at fanout branches of the candidate faulty stem, by performing multiple stuck-at fault simulation with detecting tests.

This paper describes a practical and efficient collision detection algorithm for non-convex objects in R/sup 3/. The algorithm is based on two other distance calculation algorithms: one is for convex polyhedra and the other is for non-convex polyhedra. The applied algorithm is switched between convex and non-convex, according to the distance between the objects. The closest points between the objects are followed continuously in time and can be calculated by searching for the nearest neighbors of the previous closest points. This feature greatly improves the distance calculation speed and makes it possible, for instance, to pick and move an object with a mouse, interactively getting the distance between the object and other objects. The algorithm is implemented in C++, and embedded in a series of C++ class libraries for a graphic simulation system-which the authors have named ContactScope.

A hardware system for emulating microgravity for an on-the-ground space manipulator is described. The manipulator is suspended by wires, kept vertical by the suspension arms controlled to follow the manipulator's motion. The manipulator base is supported by a six-degree-of-freedom mechanism, with which free floating is emulated based on the numerical integration of the dynamic and kinematic equations for the manipulator. The gravitational force acting on the manipulator is thus canceled by the combination of the contact force on the base and the upward tensile forces through the wires. Optimizing the manipulator's suspension keeps the values of individual tensions acting on it constant, whatever the manipulator's attitude. Experiments show that the suspension system is sensitive enough to emulate the vertical free-floating motion of a suspended object, and can be tuned to initiate a microgravity environment of at least 0.01 g under restricted conditions.>

The "Sketchphone" is an audiographic communication terminal which makes it possible to transmit handwriting and speech signals simultaneously over a telephone channel. Computer simulation of a voice interleaving technique which causes little degradation in telephone conversation quality was carried out to achieve simultaneous transmission of two signals. A complete "Sketchphone" set has not yet been built, however. A graphic tablet, using a new pressure-conductive rubber sheet, has been developed for this Sketchphone system. Since the rubber sheet is truly pressure sensitive, false signals from the hand or fingers resting on the tablet do not occur.