Techniques for using controlled natural language to capture design intent for computer-aided design

One or more non-transitory computer-readable media storing program instructions that, when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform the steps of:

• receiving a design problem statement comprising a product definition specifying a plurality of objects of a first design that are to be included in a design solution, wherein:
• the design problem statement is delineated in a controlled natural language (CNL) comprising a human-based language and not a computer-based language that defines permitted lexicons and sentence structures for a plurality of problem statements, and
• the design problem statement includes a first plurality of problem statements of different types, each type defining a different aspect of the product definition, the first plurality of problem statements complying with at least one sentence structure defined by the CNL and including:
• at least one function problem statement defining a functional property of the first design, wherein the at least one function problem statement specifies an object with a first lexicon at a first position in a first sentence structure, and a function with a second lexicon at a second position in the first sentence structure, and
• at least one statement using a second sentence structure different than the first sentence structure, wherein the at least one statement is one of an objective problem statement, a constraint problem statement, an environmental object problem statement, or an environmental interaction problem statement;
• processing the design problem statement, based on the permitted lexicons and sentence structures of the CNL, to generate a design problem model by:
• producing, using the permitted lexicons, a set of tokenized terms associated with portions of the design problem statement, and
• producing, from the set of tokenized terms and using the sentence structures, the design problem model comprising a parsed representation of the design problem statement;
• and
• displaying, via a graphical user interface, a graphical representation of the design problem model according to the first plurality of problems statements being processed that includes:
• a plurality of nodes associated with the plurality of objects specified by the design problem statement, wherein the plurality of nodes are presented at specific positions within the graphical representation to indicate environmental interaction and relative spatial positions of corresponding objects within an environment and
• a first edge associated with a relationship, specified by the design problem statement between two objects included in the plurality of objects, wherein the first edge connects the two objects based on the environmental interaction and a relative spatial relationship identified by the design problem statement.

A system comprising:

• a memory that includes a controlled natural language (CNL) graphical user interface (UI) engine;
• and a processor coupled to the memory, that executes the CNL graphical UI engine by:
• receiving a design problem statement comprising a product definition specifying a plurality of objects of a first design that are to be included in a design solution, wherein:
• the design problem statement is delineated in the CNL comprising a human-based language and not a computer-based language that defines permitted lexicons and sentence structures for a plurality of problem statements, and
• the design problem statement includes a first plurality of problem statements of different types, each type defining a different aspect of the product definition, the first plurality of problem statements complying with at least one sentence structure defined by the CNL and including:
• at least one function problem statement defining a functional property of the first design, wherein the at least one function problem statement specifies an object with a first lexicon at a first position in a first sentence structure, and a function with a second lexicon at a second position in the first sentence structure, and
• at least one statement using a second sentence structure different than the first sentence structure, wherein the at least one statement is one of an objective problem statement, a constraint problem statement, an environmental object problem statement, or an environmental interaction problem statement;
• processing the design problem statement based on the permitted lexicons and sentence structures of the CNL to generate a design problem model by:
• producing, using the permitted lexicons, a set of tokenized terms associated with portions of the design problem statement, and
• producing, from the set of tokenized terms and using the sentence structures, the design problem model comprising a parsed representation of the design problem statement;
• and
• displaying, in the graphical user interface, a graphical representation of the design problem model according to the first plurality of problems statements being processed that includes:
• a plurality of nodes representing the plurality of objects specified by the design problem statement, wherein the plurality of nodes are presented at specific positions within the graphical representation to indicate environmental interaction and relative spatial positions of corresponding objects within an environment, and
• a first edge associated with a relationship, specified by the design problem between two included in the plurality of objects, wherein the first edge connects the two objects based on the environmental interaction and a relative spatial relationship identified by the design problem statement.