Summary: |
AEC professionals need information models that are structured for their specific tasks. They also need to be able to control the integration of these models with the models of other professionals. In this paper I propose methods for formalizing and managing the dependencies between information models. Using these methods, an AEC professional constructs an information model, called a Perspective, and specifies the sources and nature of its dependency on other Perspectives. He specifies the nature of the dependency using a reasoning algorithm called a Perspector that describes the automated or manual reasoning needed to construct the dependent Perspective from its source Perspectives. He uses Management Processes to control the integration of the dependent Perspective as its source Perspectives are iteratively modified. AEC professionals apply this method repeatedly and collaboratively to compose and control directed acyclic graphs of Perspectives and their dependencies, called Narratives. Narratives provide a simple, formal, visual, flexible, distributed, yet collaborative way to construct and control the integration of multiple task-specific Perspectives. They are intended to help AEC professionals communicate, integrate, and automate multidisciplinary design processes and the information models used in these processes. |