Towards Integrated Performance-Based Generative Design Tools

Generative design methods are capable of generating concepts and stimulating solutions based on robust and rigorous models of design conditions, design languages and design performance. The computer now becomes a design generator in addition to its more conventional role as draftsperson, visualizor, data checker and performance analyst. Motivated by the challenge to enable designers to easily develop meaningful input models of design intent to make best use of a structural generative method, this paper describes an initial combination of a generative design tool, eifForm, and an associative modeling system, Custom Objects, through the use of XML models. The current combined use is illustrated through an example involving generation of a set of 20 interrelated roof trusses with seven unique spans initiated by a parametric model of a saddle shaped stadium roof in Custom Objects. The paper concludes with a discussion of the synergies between associative modeling and generative systems and identifies future extensions aimed to exploit these synergies towards integrated performance-based generative design tools.