Group of components detection in engineering drawings based on graph matching

Identifier:  imarina:9226414

Handle: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11797/imarina9226414

Authors:  Rica, Elena; Alvarez, Susana; Serratosa, Francesc

Abstract:
Computer-aided design (CAD) applications are paramount tools to inspect piping and instrumentation diagrams (P&ID) that represent the structure and functionality of oil and gas facilities. These tools allow engineers to navigate along the P&IDs and facilitate their inspection and maintenance tasks. Usually, these applications allow the user to search components for their identity or label. For instance, searching component ID-2354 or the components with Valve label. Nevertheless, sometimes, engineers wish to search for a group of components that has a specific structure or similar to it. For example, they want to detect the appearances of structures that include a valve check connected to two general valves and a butterfly valve. This paper proposes a method, based on the graph matching theory, that solves this problem. The computational complexity to detect the appearance of a component in a P&ID is linear with respect to the number of components whereas the computational complexity to detect similar structures is exponential. For this reason, heuristic algorithms have to be used. The aim of this work is to add this functionality to a CAD application.