Modeling Design Objects and Processes

This thorough and comprehensive monograph provides a linguistic framework in which to describe an information model of design objects and processes in a discrete manufacturing environment. The author gives a theoretically sound and practically useful foundation for the model by means of a technical and philosophical analysis of past and current methods. The book features: - A comprehensive list of CAD database requirements, - Use of the full capacity of first order predicate logic, - Formalization of design requirements as a schema or formal theory and definition of the realization as an extensional database or interpretation, - The dynamic process of design conceived as a series of evolving interpretations of a given formal theory. The key novelty in the book is the definition of a formal language for describing both the static and dynamic aspects of design within the setting of first order predicate logic. The book provides a theoretically well-founded and practically powerful conceptual basis on which a wide range of CAD systems can be developed in a methodical way.