Interactive Mapping between Knowledge Level and Symbol Level with Geometry A KL-Model for Design Space Exploration

Design space exploration is long-standing motivating ideas in computer-aided design. It realises this vision through a model of design states for making and moving amongst states and an organisation of states into a structure called a design space. Using a design space structuring mechanism based on a subsumption relation, this paper sketches a theory called Geometric Typed Feature Structures (GTFS) to preserve the formal properties of the design space movement algorithms for geometry. It also provides the theory for incorporation of user-guided exploration in the design space. Consequently, the clear division between knowledge level and symbol level, such that functional decomposition formal symbol level and design model symbol level, disappears. We can therefore use the same subsumption relation to structure the design space exploration interactively. Such interactive mapping between knowledge level and symbol level provides the fine-grained opportunities for user intervention in formal design space movement algorithms. In this paper, we summarize this approach with an example of GTFS subsumption process.