Abstract

Current CAD systems used in the AEC community have some critical problems. One of them is that they hardly support design collaboration. Thus designers and engineers are hard to transfer design knowledge from one discipline to another. What we need is a common building database which creates and manages building plans/models and relevant design knowledge consistently and effectively. This paper presents a powerful CAD editor, called UNIFORM, which is being developed. Currently UNIFORM includes three main modules: a plan generator, a 3-D model generator, and component databases. A plan generator, called UNIFORM PLANNER, creates a plan which contains semantically-rich information of building. Each component in the plan can be presented in various ways and connected to component databases that contain knowledge of building components such as windows, doors, walls, etc. Based on the plan UNIFORM MODELER, another module of the program, generates a three dimensional building model which could be a multiple-story building. One of the main ideas behind the system is that it generates and maintains a common building form that can be easily delivered to other members of the project team. Thus it is expected to increase system integration, team interactions, and productivity.

Keywords

• CAD engine;
• Architectural design;
• Collaboration;
• Building representation