Intelligent Cad Systems Iii

This book contains a selection of revised versions of papers presented at the Third Eurographics Workshop on Intelligent CAD Systems, which was held at Hotel Opduin on the island of Texel in The Netherlands, April 3-7, 1989. The workshop theme was Practical Experience and Evaluation. It included five paper presentation sessions, each followed by a discussion. The workshop closed with a general discussion. The book is therefore divided into five parts: design process, system architecture, languages, geometric reasoning, and user interface. A report on the discussion session, written by the session's moderator, concludes each part. These reports are not intended to be exact records of the discussion, but rather the moderators' summary of their contents. The aim of the workshop was to share the experience the participants gained by developing intelligent CAD (Computer Aided Design) systems, and to evaluate the developed systems to determine which features were still lacking. The workshop was organized as the last one in a series of three workshops under the same title. The first workshop focused on theoretical and methodological aspects, resulting in a sound theoretical basis for intelligent CAD systems. Implementational issues were discussed at the second workshop, paying attention to systems developed with reference to this basis. The experience and evaluation showed a dual outcome. Firstly, it resulted in the development of a new generation of intelligent CAD systems. Secondly, it led us to the development of new theories for intelligent CAD.

CAD (Computer Aided Design) technology is now crucial for every division of modern industry, from a viewpoint of higher productivity and better products. As technologies advance, the amount of information and knowledge that engineers have to deal with is constantly increasing. This results in seeking more advanced computer technology to achieve higher functionalities, flexibility, and efficient performance of the CAD systems. Knowledge engineering, or more broadly artificial intelligence, is considered a primary candidate technology to build a new generation of CAD systems. Since design is a very intellectual human activity, this approach seems to make sense. The ideas of intelligent CAD systems (ICAD) are now increasingly discussed everywhere. We can observe many conferences and workshops reporting a number of research efforts on this particular subject. Researchers are coming from computer science, artificial intelligence, mechanical engineering, electronic engineering, civil engineering, architectural science, control engineering, etc. But, still we cannot see the direction of this concept, or at least, there is no widely accepted concept of ICAD. What can designers expect from these future generation CAD systems? In which direction must developers proceed? The situation is somewhat confusing.

Records of the 2nd Eurographics Workshop on "Intelligent CAD Systems", Held on April 19-23, 1988, at Konigshof Congress Centre, Veldhoven, the Netherlands

Agent Technology, or Agent-Based Approaches, is a new paradigm for developing software applications. It has been hailed as 'the next significant breakthrough in software development', and 'the new revolution in software' after object technology or object-oriented programming. In this context, an agent is a computer system which is capable of act

Design is at least as much a process of discovery as it is a purposeful manipulation of facts into a contemplated solution. Although the aspect of design which involves discovery can perhaps never be fully automated, we can expect to build systems to aid or to automate various problem solving aspects of design. The concept of an intelligent CAD system as the computer side of an effective human-computer team working on a design problem is by now well established. Such a team should relieve human designers from the routine and more mundane tasks encountered in the course of a design, allowing them to concentrate on more creative aspects. A conventional CAD system merely documents the outcome of a design, while an intelligent CAD system makes a meaningful contribution to the actual progress of a design. This volume contains the results of the IFIP workshop on intelligent CAD. Included are reports from the chairpersons of the three subgroups and plenary sessions, invited papers, and papers selected from contributions. The selected papers were first reviewed by the program committee and chairpersons and then revised based on their comments.Together with the proceedings from the previous two workshops, this volume contains an exhaustive documentation of the development of intelligent CAD.

CAD (Computer Aided Design) technology is now crucial for every division of modern industry, from a viewpoint of higher productivity and better products. As technologies advance, the amount of information and knowledge that engineers have to deal with is constantly increasing. This results in seeking more advanced computer technology to achieve higher functionalities, flexibility, and efficient performance of the CAD systems. Knowledge engineering, or more broadly artificial intelligence, is considered a primary candidate technology to build a new generation of CAD systems. Since design is a very intellectual human activity, this approach seems to make sense. The ideas of intelligent CAD systems (ICAD) are now increasingly discussed everywhere. We can observe many conferences and workshops reporting a number of research efforts on this particular subject. Researchers are coming from computer science, artificial intelligence, mechanical engineering, electronic engineering, civil engineering, architectural science, control engineering, etc. But, still we cannot see the direction of this concept, or at least, there is no widely accepted concept of ICAD. What can designers expect from these future generation CAD systems? In which direction must developers proceed? The situation is somewhat confusing.

This book is a collection of several tutorials from the EUROGRAPHICS '90 conference in Montreux. The conference was held under the motto "IMAGES: Synthesis, Analysis and Interaction", and the tutorials, partly presented in this volume, reflect the conference theme. As such, this volume provides a unique collection of advanced texts on 'traditional' com puter graphics as well as of tutorials on image processing and image reconstruction. As with all the volumes of the series "Advances in Computer Graphics", the contributors are leading experts in their respective fields. The chapter Design and Display of Solid Models provides an extended introduction to interactive graphics techniques for design, fast display, and high-quality rendering of solid models. The text focuses on techniques for Constructive Solid Geometry (CSG). The follow ing topics are treated in depth: interactive design techniques (specification of curves, surfaces and solids; graphical user interfaces; procedural languages and direct manipulation) and display techniques (depth-buffer, scan-line and ray-tracing techniques; CSG classification techniques; efficiency-improving methods; software and hardware implementations).