HIERARCHICAL GEOMETRIC CONSTRAINTS FOR BUILDING DESIGN

Research and applications in parametric manipulation of geometry through constraints has been applied to the description of individual parts, and to the configuration of rigid parts within an assembly. Manipulating the geometry of an assembly such as a building often requires accounting for interaction between constraints governing shape and those governing location. Most approaches use a nonhierarchical organization of constraints which makes it difficult to account for interaction of shape and location constraints. The paper describes a hierarchical constraint approach and implementation which addresses these issues.