Technique for Interactive Computer Graphics in Design

Developments in computing software and hardware make it possible to consign more of the design labor to the computer than has been possible, and permit the designer to exercise more fully his role as policy maker. Formula manipulation computer languages which can be used to produce exact differentials of very large nonlinear expressions and interactive graphic terminals which make it possible to modify on-line the nonlinear programming problem representing a design situation permit structural designs to be generated by the computer which are complete in all respects, where all design parameters necessary to define the configurations can be used, and where building code provisions are used unchanged as the set of constraints. The architecture of a man-machine interactive system is presented which allows the designer to effectively mold the design with a light pen as it is being evolved by the computer with the NLP algorithm and which appears in effect as an animation on the scope. A case study of an optimally proportioned beam is given in tabular form.