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This paper deals with the conceptual stage of the design process related to civil engineering. Different types of design knowledge representation essential in visual aspects of a human-computer dialogue are considered. They comprise designer's drawings expressing forms, layouts and functionality of designed artifacts, internal graph-based data structures obtained automatically on the basis of these drawings and logic formulas extracted from the graph data structures. The reasoning mechanism based on the first-order logic enables the system to assess the compatibility of designs with specified requirements and constraints. The feedback given by the system along with visualizations of initial design ideas enforce the designer's constructive visual perception and creativity. The presented approach is illustrated on the example of designing an indoor swimming pool. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The paper deals with using design knowledge encoded in a visual language and graph-based structures to support the conceptual phase of designing. The visual language is based on the design conceptualization and composed of design diagrams being configurations of geometric primitives. A symbolic representation of design structures in terms of objects specified by the conceptualization and relations between them is defined, and then mapped into diagrams by a given realization. Diagrams are automatically transformed into the corresponding graph-based data structures. The knowledge stored in the graph representations of diagrams is translated into first-order logic formulas which describe generated design configurations. A proposed logic-based reasoning mechanism allows the design supporting system to check the compatibility of designs with the given requirements and constraints. The approach is illustrated by examples of designing configurations of transmission truss towers. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]