Generation of Architectural Product Models from CAD Drawings and its Application

Abstract

Object-oriented CAD tools which adopt an architectural object model have been provided in the field of architecture. By using such CAD tools, designers can easily design a building because they can use architectural objects as basic elements. However, at present, buildings are commonly designed using conventional drawing tools which exchange information only in a form of geometric data such as lines and arcs. We have developed a system which supports model conversion between these kinds of data. We propose a framework of knowledge description for generation of product models from architectural CAD drawings. We also experimented with application of the generated object model in a system for designing fire alarm system, which is a kind of object-oriented CAD.