A framework for preservable geometry-centric artifacts

Digital preservation is the mitigation of the deleterious effects of technology obsolescence, media degradation, and fading human memory. For engineering, design, manufacturing, and physics-based simulation data this requires formats that are semantically accessible for 30-to-50 year lifespans. One of the fundamental challenges is the development of digital geometry-centric engineering representations that are self describing and assured to be interpretable over the long lifespans required by archival applications. This paper introduces the challenge of long-term preservation of digital geometric models. We describe a digital preservation case study for an engineering model which required, for just a single part, over 3.5 GB of data, including 39 file formats and over 750 distinct model and shape files. Based on lessons learned in this case study, we present a framework for enhancing the preservation of geometry-centric engineering knowledge. This framework is currently being used on a number of projects in engineering education.