Capturing and evaluating parametric design exploration in a collaborative environment: A study case of versioning for parametric design

Abstract

Although parametric modelling and digital design tools have become ubiquitous in digital design, there is a limited understanding of how designers apply them in their design processes (Yu et al., 2014). This paper looks at the use of GHShot versioning tool developed by the authors (Cristie & Joyce, 2018; 2019) used to capture and track changes and progression of parametric models to understand early-stage design exploration and collaboration empirically. We introduce both development history graph-based metrics (macro-process) and parametric model and geometry change metric (micro-process) as frameworks to explore and understand the captured progression data. These metrics, applied to data collected from three cohorts of classroom collaborative design exercises, exhibited students' distinct modification patterns such as major and complex creation processes or minor parameter explorations. Finally, with the metrics' applicability as an objective language to describe the (collaborative) design process, we recommend using versioning for more data-driven insight into parametric design exploration processes.