Advanced CAD environments: a knowledge-based foundation

Abstract

Current computer‐aided design (CAD) systems are extremely powerful tools for the development of products in an industrial setting. However, they still leave a lot to be desired when it comes to fulfilling a designer's demands and dreams. We believe that knowledge engineering, or more broadly artificial intelligence (AI), is a promising candidate for providing advanced design environments. This paper proposes assorted techniques from AI—such as logical knowledge representation, naive physics, and commonsense reasoning—as effective means of obtaining such environments. In order to make adept, temporal comments, an architecture machine must have a certain basic understanding of qualities. Though at first primitive, this qualitative appreciation itself would evolve within a value system that is very personal, between a man and a machine.