DRIFT: A Framework for Ontology-based Design Support Systems

This paper proposes a framework for ontology-based design support systems, called DRIFT (Design Rationale Integration Framework of Three layers), which records, structures and retrieves reflective operations and their relationships in design process. Although an ontology can provide concepts of static knowledge, such as knowledge about first principles of physical phenomena or prescription of successful design cases, a dynamic aspect of design process is usually out of ontology support. DRIFT automatically captures and manages the whole design argumentation through tracking design operations over an ontology-based design support system. This paper states our position and demonstrates a prototype system of DRIFT to show its performances and effectiveness.