The work presented is concerned with investigations into the use of a refreshable graphical display for the solution of design and analysis problems in engineering. Effort has been devoted to the study and implementation of a variety of applications in an attempt to identify the most suitable techniques, form of program organization and hardware configuration for this type of equipment. General topics pertinent to these investigations, including data structuring, graphical communication and some general principles of software design, are discussed. The applications which are presented are: (a) LUISA, a system for finite element analysis of two-dimensional engineering structures, (b) TDD, a set of programs for three-dimensional drawing, written to investigate a number of methods of communicating with a three-dimensional model, (c) BAID, a program for aiding the architect with the design of high density housing layouts, (d) An outline of a system for generating the data input for three-dimensional finite element analysis of solid and shell structures. A detailed description is included of a paging scheme used to segment the data structure. The data structure employed and scope of facilities provided are described for each of the applications. Discrete representation of engineering components is shown to be ideally suited to the organization of data in structured form both in the computer core store and on secondary storage. A description is given of some devices, provided by software and making use of the lightpen, which allow development of dynamic techniques for graphical communication with a digital model. A modular approach to software design is advocated, with advantage being taken of general packages, wherever possible, for administration of interaction handling and data organization. Proposals are made about the re-arrangement of the applications dealt with in order to implement them on a remote satellite computer configuration. Suggestions are made about the size of such a configuration and the organization of software in the two machines.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:674033 |
| Date | January 1971 |
| Creators | Hubbold, Roger Jeffrey |
| Publisher | University of Leicester |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://hdl.handle.net/2381/34782 |
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