Gradual lightweight method of three dimensional prototypes for digital technical support

Intuitionistic three dimensional (3D) models can improve the efficiency and accuracy of civil airliner's distant maintenance support, but due to the fact that models' data size generated in computer aided design systems is usually quite huge, it is a sever challenge to make a lightweight 3D digital prototype. Based on the analysis of two lightweight ways, i.e., model format transformation and model simplification, a gradual lightweight method for digital prototype based on unit data size was proposed, which progressively simplify the 3D model of a whole plane into many different simplification levels, and a hierarchical management methods based on distortion criterion was proposed, which progressively load and use distortion model with high reduction rate and undamage model with detail characteristics according to model structure tree. An example shows that these methods can effectively reduce data size for network transmission and preserve necessary detail characteristics of the model, so that quick access to 3D model of a whole plane via internet can be realized.