Visual Narratives of Parametric Design History: Aha! Now I see how you did it!
Halil I. Erhan, Rodolfo Sanchez, Robert F. Woodbury, Volker Mueller · eCAADe proceedings · 2012
Histories are underdeveloped and underused features in parametric CAD (PCAD) systems. Designers employ backtracking and deferral strategies that both use and augment history. Using backtracking and deferral as a framework we present two classes of design process graph diagramming techniques for augmented history in PCAD. We compare the second version of these design process graphs across several designers who completed multiple tasks using two parametric systems (SolidWorks and GenerativeComponents). The two systems show similar types of action, with markedly more and deeper backtracking in GenerativeComponents. We present a third diagramming system as a design for a proof of concept prototype. This prototype aims to expand the capabilities of design histories beyond access to single prior states to visualize and enable direct interaction based on backtracking and deferral.