Helping the Designer in Solution Selection: Applications in CAD

In CAD, symbolic geometric solvers allow to solve constraint systems, given under the form of a sketch and a set of constraints, by computing a symbolic construction plan describing how to build the required figure. But a construction plan does not usually define a unique figure, and the selection of the expected figure remains an important topic. This paper expose three methods, automatic or interactive, to help the designer in the exploration of the solution space. These methods guide him towards the expected solution, by basing the construction on the observation of the sketch. A set of examples from a large range of application domains illustrate the di#erent methods