Integrated CAD for buildings

Abstract

The development of CAD systems for building construction must not be excessively ambitious to begin with, as this could mean economic problems and a lack of enthusiasm when over —ambitious initial object— ives are not achieved. Building construction covers a very wide range of activities and professionals. In fact, there exists a number of applications which cover the main areas involved in a satisfactory and independent manner: e.g. topography, geometry, structure, installations and management. The Instituto Eduardo Torroja, together with other Research Centres and Tehcnical Project Offices, is working on a research project, the guidelines of which are as follows: The integration of the different exiting applications will be made gradually with a detailed study of their corresponding data bases and their connection to one or more general data bases. Special attention will be paid to the user computer interfaces. The 3-D graphic systems to be used should be more specialised, taking into graphic systems to be used should be more specialised, taking into account the differences that exist between mechanical and building applications. Research is also needed to improved the performance of some graphic algorithms; the structural analysis models to be used must be efficient and adequately complex. Some specific problems, also, such as column slab connections, etc. must be satisfactorily solved. The introduction of artificial intelligence techniques for making decisions on some specific points is also of interest.