Concept design visualization-a component-based approach

The paper presents a new framework and design methodology for concept-level systems design. The central part of the framework is an introduction of the components to represent the systems concept. The framework utilizes these components to navigate the designer´s exploration to obtain subsystems and semiautomatically integrates subsystems into one whole system. The design exploration (DE) components are a set of abstractions of the design exploration activities. A design history is recorded as a dependency graph of the DE components. The systems integration (SI) components are a set of relationships between subsystems from the systems integration perspective. Using SI components, the designer can design the system´s hierarchical structure as a graph, the systems integration graph. By introducing a common semantic ground for these components, a design navigation algorithm and a conversion algorithm from the design history to the systems integration graph are introduced