ISO 10303 - Coverage of STEP Application Protocols (AP)

Coverage of STEP Application Protocols (AP)

The STEP APs can be roughly grouped into the three main areas design, manufacturing and life cycle support.

Design APs:

• Mechanical:
  • AP 201, Explicit draughting. Simple 2D drawing geometry related to a product. No association, no assembly hierarchy.
  • AP 202, Associative draughting. 2D/3D drawing with association, but no product structure.
  • AP 203, Configuration controlled 3D designs of mechanical parts and assemblies.
  • AP 204, Mechanical design using boundary representation
  • AP 207, Sheet metal die planning and design
  • AP 209, Composite and metallic structural analysis and related design
  • AP 214, Core data for automotive mechanical design processes
  • AP 235, Materials information for the design and verification of products
  • AP 236, Furniture product data and project data
  • AP 242, Managed model based 3d engineering (under development)
• Connectivity oriented electric, electronic and piping/ventilation:
  • AP 210, Electronic assembly, interconnect and packaging design. The most complex and sophisticated STEP AP.
  • AP 212, Electrotechnical design and installation.
  • AP 227, Plant spatial configuration
• Ship:
  • AP 215, Ship arrangement
  • AP 216, Ship moulded forms
  • AP 218, Ship structures
• Others:
  • AP 225, Building elements using explicit shape representation
  • AP 232, Technical data packaging core information and exchange
  • AP 233, Systems engineering data representation
  • AP 237, Fluid dynamics has been cancelled and the functionality included in AP 209

Manufacturing APs:

• AP 219, Dimensional inspection information exchange
• AP 223, Exchange of design and manufacturing product information for cast parts
• AP 224, Mechanical product definition for process plans using machining features
• AP 238 - Application interpreted model for computer numeric controllers
• AP 240, Process plans for machined products

Life cycle support APs:

• AP 239, Product life cycle support
• AP 221, Functional data and schematic representation of process plants
• AP 241, Generic Model for Life Cycle Support of AEC Facilities (planned)

The AP 221 model is very similar to the ISO 15926-2 model, whereas AP 221 follows the STEP architecture and ISO 15926-2 has a different architecture. They both use ISO-15926-4 as their common reference data library or dictionary of standard instances. A further development of both standards resulted in Gellish English as general product modeling language that is application domain independent and that is proposed as a work item (NWI) for a new standard.

The original intent of STEP was to publish one integrated data-model for all life cycle aspects. But due to the complexity, different groups of developers and different speed in the development processes, the splitting into several APs was needed. But this splitting made it difficult to ensure that APs are interoperable in overlapping areas. Main areas of harmonization are:

• AP 214 and 203 in the area of 3D mechanical design. AP 214 took over all of the functionality of the earlier AP 203 edition and then extending the capabilities significantly. The second edition of AP 203 (published in 2011) took over bigger parts of AP 214 by adding again new functionality. The upcoming AP 242 will formally replace AP 203, 214 and other mechanical design APs
• AP 201, 202, 212, 214, 221 and now AP 203 ed 2 for technical drawings with extension in AP 212 and 221 for schematic functionality
• AP 214, 224 and 238 for machining features.
• AP 203ed2, 210, 214, 224, 238 for Geometric dimensioning and tolerancing

For complex areas it is clear that more than one APs are needed to cover all major aspects:

• AP 212 and 214 for electro-mechanical products such as a car or a transformer
• AP 203/214, 209 and 210 for electro/electronic-mechanical products
• AP 212, 215, 216, 218, 227 for ships
• AP 203/214, 224, 240 and 238 for the complete design and manufacturing process of piece parts.