Visual file representation

1. A method for producing a visualization format from CAD data, comprising:

producing a BREP model for visualization, wherein said BREP model has a topology component and a geometry component;

removing a plurality of redundant control points from said geometry component;

normalizing a plurality of knot vectors and a plurality of weight components from said geometry component;

recognizing an analytic geometry from said geometry component by simplifying a 2-dimensional surface recognition problem of the geometry component to two 1-dimension curve recognition problems;

recognizing a plurality of equivalent geometric elements from said geometry component that share surface and curve geometry; and

converting said analytic geometry to a light model representation, wherein the method is performed by a computer having at least a processor and memory.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising incorporating said topology component into said light model representation.

3. A computer, comprising:

a processor;

a tangible storage medium;

a visualization format production component that utilizes computer aided drafting (CAD) data when executed by the processor;

a visualization format compression component that writes the visualization format production component to the storage medium when executed by the processor; and

a plurality of kernels, including at least a tessellation kernel, a visualization kernel, and a geometric kernel, that consume the visualization format production component from said storage medium to fulfill a plurality of engineering visualization functions when executed by the processor.

4. A non-transitory machine readable medium encoded with computer-readable instructions that, when executed , cause a computer to:

produce a BREP model for visualization, wherein said BREP model has a topology component and a geometry component;

remove a plurality of redundant control points from said geometry component;

normalize a plurality of knot vectors and a plurality of weight components from said geometry component;

recognize an analytic geometry from said geometry component by simplifying a 2-dimensional surface recognition problem of the geometry component to two 1-dimension curve recognition problems;

recognize a plurality of equivalent geometric elements from said geometry component that share surface and curve geometry; and

convert said analytic geometry to a light model representation.

5. A data processing system comprising;

a processor; and

an accessible memory storing executable instructions that together implement a method for producing a visualization format from CAD data by causing the processer to perform the steps of

producing a BREP model for visualization, wherein said BREP model has a topology component and a geometry component;

removing a plurality of redundant control points from said geometry component by simplifying a 2-dimensional surface recognition problem of the geometry component to two 1-dimension curve recognition problems;

normalizing a plurality of knot vectors and a plurality of weight components from said geometry component;

recognizing an analytic geometry from said geometry component;

recognizing a plurality of equivalent geometric elements from said geometry component that share surface and curve geometry; and

converting said analytic geometry to a light model representation.