Abstract
Defining similarity between design concept drawings according to their contents enables case-based design aid, such as retrieval of drawings relevant to a designer's current design problem or extraction of sharable design knowledge by classifying accumulated drawings. In this study, we analyze design concept drawings and formalize geometry associated with physical quantities (e.g., an arrow with 'Pa' representing pressure application) as a 'behavior line', which is not defined in conventional drawing standards. Then we propose a general and objective definition of similarity among design concept drawings based on physical quantities and geometry to cover a wide range of engineering design cases across different designers, products, domains and organizations. The methods of retrieving and classifying design concept drawings using the defined similarity are proposed and applied to some example drawings.
