Potential Projects for CS294-5, 1996

Smart Clustering of Bubble Diagram

Use techniques developed for automatic placement of major building blocks in a floorplan of integrated circuits, to produce a more reasonably laid out initial bubble diagram in which rooms that belong together are already place close one another.

Shared Database

Tie all the tools directly into an efficient shared database so that rather than forming a pipeline, the tools form a star, accessing a shared core of project data.

Extended Graphics Editor

Replace the current tcl-based graphics editor in the front-end symbolic tools with a more efficient editor with extra smarts to address the key concerns of the various individual tools; e.g., for the Floor-Space-Manager, this would include editing not just rectangles, and some sort of snapping to grids or to adjacent features to give the desired alignments.

Global Connectivity Checking

Add a batch evaluation mode to the floorplan connectivity checker tool. Smart decision have to be made what it means to check the adjacency matrix entry: Faculty -- Faculty = 2. It means that faculty want to be close to one another, but what is the test in the symbolic floorplan ? Perhaps check the maximum of all the shortest paths between any two faculty offices ...

Global Traffic Estimation

Assuming a certain occupancy for each room and an associated statistical behavior of these occupants, sum up all the traffic generated by these occupants coming and going to the respective room. Calculate estimated traffic patterns in key corridors.

Building Cost Estimation

Using a heuristic set of numbers for building costs based on square footage, number of stories, amount of outside walls, size of roof, etc, produce a rough building cost estimate from the symbolic description of the floorplans which can be used in the early conceptual design phase to warn architects and clients when their designs get too elaborate or flamboyant.

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