FCDA:
Distributed CAD for
Collaborative Design

Lab Objectives:

1. Communicate information that you have created conncurrently.
2. Communicate design changes.
3. Request information.

Lab Procedure:

• Communicate information that you have created concurrently
• Communicate design changes
• Request Information
• Explanation of menus

Communicate Information that you have created concurrently

• Agent -> Facilitator -> Register
• Agent -> Facilitator -> Advertise Capabilities
• Agent -> Facilitator -> Advertise Interests
• Agent -> Facilitator -> Get Registered Agents

1a. Structural engineer will route a number of layers which contain information about the structural CAD model.
• Agent -> Outgoing Info -> Communicate Info...
• a dialog box pops up. Click on Route, Layer
• type under Send Layer: COLMRF
• click: OK
• Do this again for the layer GIRDMRF, etc.

1b. Architect

• Agent -> Outgoing Info -> Communicate Info...
• a dialog box pops up. Click on Route, Layer
• type under Send Layer: spaces
• click: OK

2a. Structural engineer
• Agent -> Incoming Info -> Check
• Agent -> Incoming Info -> Receive
2b. Architect
• Agent -> Incoming Info -> Check
• Agent -> Incoming Info -> Receive

Communicate design changes

• Agent -> Modify Blocks -> Move
• Select object - e.g. click on a space
• press Return
• click near the selected space for a base point
• drag the space to a new location
• click in the new location
• Agent -> Outgoing Info -> Forward changes
• type PSTRUC at the prompt
• press Return

• Agent -> Incoming Info -> Check
• Agent -> Incoming Info -> Receive

Request Information

Architect
• Agent -> Request Info -> Initiate Request
• a dialog box pops up in which you should select:
  
  Ask-All
  Multiple Attribute Query
• click OK
Structural Engineer
• Agent -> Incoming Info -> Receive
• Agent -> Incoming Info -> List Info
Architect
• Agent -> Incoming Info -> Receive
• Agent -> Incoming Info -> List Info
• Agent -> Incoming Info -> Process Replies

Explanation of Menus

The facilitator performs content-based routing as a function of a message and the interests of the agent.

In order for an agent to use the facilitator the following sequence has to be performed:

• Register: the agent both declares itself to the facilitator and is ready to send/receive messages. Upon registration, an agent is made active.
• Advertise Capabilities: informs the faciltator about the capabilities of the agent.
• Advertise Interests: informs the facilitator about the information interests of the agent.
• Advertise Perspectives: informs the facilitator about the form it wishes to communicate particular pieces of information.
Once the agent has registered with the facilitator, additional actions can be taken, such as:
• Unregister: unregisters an agent from the facilitator, e.g., after the agent has completed its function.
• Activate: activates an agent that is inactive.
• Deactivate: deactivates an agent.
• Get Registered Agents: pops up a dialog box which indicates the agents registered with the facilitator.
• Get Active Agents: returns the names of the active agents
• Find Interested Agents: is similar to active agents, except it prompts the user for an interest area, so that it may return a list of all "interested" agents "who can do what". Does not work yet.

The agent -> draw submenu has to be used in order to track changes and relate these changes as messages that will be sent to other agents.

The agent -> draw -> insert submenu provides you with a library of components which can be inserted in the drawing.

Try inserting a cooling tower in the HVAC system.

The agent -> modify submenu provides the basic AutoCAD functionality and the FCDA facility to track changes and relate these changes as messages that will be sent to other agents.

The agent -> outgoing info submenu provides the different communication protocols for outgoing info.

The agent -> communicate info provides different types of communication in a drawing such as:

• Route: consists of sending information to the facilitator which then updates all the agents who have expressed interest in the content of the message. This is the default form of communication.
• Broadcast: sends a message to all agents regardless of their expressed interests.
• Forward: allows a user to forward a particular set of information items to an egant whose name has to be given by the user.
• Store: sends information to the facilitator which stores the information for delivery at a later time.
Types of Information which can be communicated:
• Changes: includes all the changes made by the user since the last time the communication buffer was reset by a previous call to send changes.
• All: includes all the AutoCAD database information for the current drawing.
• Layer: includes all the information in a selected layer.
• Window: includes all the entities in a selected window.
• Selected Entities: this is similar to a window, however the user has to select the graphic entities to be communicated.

The agent -> incoming info submenu includes all function needed to receive, review, undo, list, and buffer all incoming information.
• Check: returns one of the following messages:
  Information has arrived
  No information has arrived
• Receive: instructs the agent to propogate all the incoming information.
• List: pops up a dialog box which lists all the incoming information.
• Buffer: instructs the agent to buffer all of the incoming information for review at a later time. (don't use)
• Undo Receive: undo propogated all incoming information if user does not like the changes.
• Propogate Buffer: intended to be used with wait buffer. (don't use)

The purpose of this set of functions is to allow the user to query other agents as to the state of their data sets. In order to initiate a request, two simple decisions need to be made.
• how do we want to communicate the request? - Route, broadcast, forward
• what type of request do we wish to initiate?

This menu allows the user to publish or show an explanation
• Publish: enables the user to send a message to others.
• Show: enables users to display an incoming explanation.