Manipulating design models by editing generated reports
First Claim
1. A method of using visually displayed forms to make changes in a model for a design, said method comprising the steps of:
- using a model to represent some or all of the design, the design including a multitude of design elements, the model including a multitude of model elements, each of the model elements having defined properties, and each of the design elements being represented by a single one of the model elements;
generating a suite of documents from the model, each of the documents describing a different aspect of the design;
visually displaying the documents to a user as a series of visually displayed forms;
said user adding information to said visually displayed forms to make changes to one or more of the documents, to change the design and the model for the design, including changing a plurality of the properties of the model elements;
whereinchanges to the documents result in both changes to the model and consistent changes across the suite of documents generated from the model, and changing any one of the properties by the user leads to a refreshing of said one property wherever said one property is repeated in all of the documents; and
restricting the changes the user can make to the forms to prevent the user from making changes across different properties of the model.
1 Assignment
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A method and system are disclosed for manipulating a model, where that model represents some or all of a design. The design includes a multitude of design elements, the model includes a multitude of model elements, and each of the design elements is represented by a single model element. The method comprises the steps of generating a suite of documents from the model, each of the documents describing a view of the model; and displaying the documents to a user as a series of forms. The user provides information to the forms to change the documents, and changes to the documents result in both changes to the model and consistent changes across the suite of documents. In the preferred embodiment, the model identifies specific relationships between the elements of the model, and each of the model elements has defined properties.
-
Citations
20 Claims
-
1. A method of using visually displayed forms to make changes in a model for a design, said method comprising the steps of:
-
using a model to represent some or all of the design, the design including a multitude of design elements, the model including a multitude of model elements, each of the model elements having defined properties, and each of the design elements being represented by a single one of the model elements; generating a suite of documents from the model, each of the documents describing a different aspect of the design; visually displaying the documents to a user as a series of visually displayed forms; said user adding information to said visually displayed forms to make changes to one or more of the documents, to change the design and the model for the design, including changing a plurality of the properties of the model elements;
whereinchanges to the documents result in both changes to the model and consistent changes across the suite of documents generated from the model, and changing any one of the properties by the user leads to a refreshing of said one property wherever said one property is repeated in all of the documents; and restricting the changes the user can make to the forms to prevent the user from making changes across different properties of the model. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11)
-
-
12. A system for using visually displayed forms to make changes in a model for a design, said system comprising:
-
a report generator for generating a suite of documents from a model representing some or all of the design, the design including a multitude of design elements, the model including a multitude of model elements, each of the model elements having defined properties, each of the design elements being represented by a single one of the model elements, and each of the documents describing a different aspect of the design; a display device for visually displaying the documents to a user as a series of forms; and user input means to enable the user to add information to said visually displayed forms to make changes to one or more of the documents, to change the design and the model for the design, including changing a plurality of the properties of the model elements;
whereinchanges to the documents result in both changes to the model and consistent changes across the suite of documents generated from the model, and changing any one of the properties by the user leads to a refreshing of said one property wherever said one property is repeated in all of the documents; and the user input means restricts the changes the user can make to the forms to prevent the user from making changes across different properties of the model. - View Dependent Claims (13, 14, 15, 16, 17)
-
-
18. A computer readable storage media, tangibly embodying a program of instructions executable by the computer to perform method steps for using visually displayed forms to make producing changes in a model for a design, said method steps comprising:
-
using a model to represent some or all of the design, the design including a multitude of design elements, each of the model elements having defined properties, the model including a multitude of properties and a multitude of model elements, and each of the design elements being represented by a single one of the model elements; generating a suite of documents from the model, each of the documents describing a different aspect of the design; visually displaying the documents to a user as a series of visually displayed forms; and said user adding information to said visually displayed forms to make changes to one or more of the documents, to change the design and the model for the design, including changing a plurality of the properties of the model elements;
whereinchanges to the documents result in both changes to the model and consistent changes across the suite of documents generated from the model, and changing any one of the properties by the user leads to a refreshing of said one property wherever said one property is repeated in all of the documents; and restricting the changes the user can make to the forms to prevent the user from making changes across different properties of the model. - View Dependent Claims (19, 20)
-
Specification