A Framework for Reasoning About CAD Data

by Martin Fischer, Terman Engineering Cent, Stanford, United States,
C. B. Tatum, Terman Engineering Cent, Stanford, United States,



Document Type: Proceeding Paper

Part of: Preparing for Construction in the 21st Century

Abstract:

A system capable of reasoning about CAD data offers the opportunity to substantially improve a design or a construction plan by providing feedback about an engineer's artifact. This paper discusses the following aspects regarding the development of intelligent CAD systems: the intelligence of the CAD system (i.e., its capability to associate meaning with CAD primitives) including the tradeoff between the intelligence of the CAD system and the complexity of the reasoning processes required to reason about CAD data; the types and depths of reasoning that need to be performed by the expert system; and the overall system architecture (i.e., whether expert system capabilities should be added to the CAD system, or vice versa, or both should be kept separate). The paper concludes that an intelligent CAD system can be built with existing technology. However, a paradigm shift from the current line-based CAD systems with a closed architecture used to generate drawings to object-oriented systems with an open architecture used to generate project models is necessary to attain truly integrated intelligent systems.

Subject Headings: Computer aided design | Expert systems | Artificial intelligence (AI) | Architecture | Computer models | Construction management | Systems engineering

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