Modelling with Constraints: A Bibliographical Survey

Nowadays, the constraint solvers play a fundamental role in many graphical applications, including geometrical and mechanical CAD systems, layouts, user interface, and animation. These applications use constraints to conveniently describe relations between objects. Constraints are automatically maintained and satisfied by a constraints solver. So, numerical and tedious tasks are left to the solver and the designer can concentrate on design process. In this paper, we present concepts of constraints and constraints solvers. We classify the principal resolution methods, giving their drawbacks and shortcomings. We also examine different domains of applications using constraint solvers.