Research on network based conceptual design

Conceptual design has played a very important role in the design process. Knowledge of all the design requirements and constraints during this early phase of a product's life cycle is usually approximate, imprecise, and unknown. Conceptual design is now recognized as a highly important process when considering both the concurrent engineering aspects and the commitment of resources necessary to design and develop a product. With the development of the Internet, collaborative design is imperative and effective. The technology of CSCW is adopted widely and necessarily in the domain of conceptual design. It can fit the nature of the design. It shortens the distance of designers in different places and collects and shares all the information in time. In conceptual design, collaborative design mainly includes function, principle, layout and initial structure, etc. We developed a system of conceptual design based on the current CAD system, which realized the seamless link with later detail design. For individual design, multi-modal technology, which integrates many interactions such as gesture and speech, supports an advanced interface to assist humans in developing applications.