Hi Dave, yeah I think you have the right idea - a lot of times programs are constructed using not just using code that is completely freshly written, but also making use of some previously existing code that may be licensed from another company.
There are all kinds of libraries out there, everything from database libraries, libraries for different UI widgets, libraries for physics calculations in games, etc..., etc....
MoI makes use of one for a lot of NURBS calculations such as surface/surface intersections, fillet construction, and a bunch more. I've also written a lot of custom code in addition to the library as well, for cases where it did not quite do what I wanted it to do. But for some things like a volume calculation I would be relying more heavily on the library for that.
There is some information on the geometry library that MoI uses here: http://www.integrityware.com/solids.html
- Michael
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