An Expert System for Polyhedra Modelling

Abstract

Very often we wish to construct shapes according to some criteria, which are properties we want the object to possess. In this case explicit construction becomes an inadapted way of working. One would wish to obtain the result just by giving the desired properties. This is the approach we try to develop here, limiting the problem, for a start, to a special class of solids: the polyhedra. The aim of this study is to demonstrate the general principles which lead to a definition of solids through their properties, and not through an explicit construction. This leads us to the idea that giving a set of properties is a means to model solids, which allows us to talk about declarative modelling.