THE DESIGN OF BUILDING PARTS BY USING KNOWLEDGE-BASED SYSTEMS

With the widespread use of CAD systems in architecture and building construction there is a growing demand for intelligent CAD systems. Such systems have been proposed e.g. for preliminary building design [19], lay-out design [9], [16] or construction management [7]. In this paper we describe a knowledge based framework for the computer aided design of building parts. Our project is divided into two parts: A theoretical one, where methods and their advantages will be identified, and a practical one, where these methods are implemented as independent modules interacting with each other, a data base and a CAD-system. First, a staircase designer will be presented. This expert system is described in details as part of a domain specific shell on one hand and as an independent working module on the other. Based on this prototype expert system, our main objective is to develop a domain specific design shell. Currently, we also investigate specializations of the expert modules in order to tackle particular design and manufacturing problems.