This book is an attempt to bring together some of the most infiuential pie ces of research that collectively underpin today's understanding of what constitutes and contributes to design synthesis, and the approaches and tools for supporting this important activity. The book has three parts. Part 1 - Understanding - is intended to provide an overview of some of the major findings as to what constitutes design synthesis, and some of its major infiuencing factors. Part 2 - Approaches - provides descriptions of some of the major prescriptive approaches to design synthesis that together infiu enced many of the computational tools described in the final part. Part 3 - Tool- is a selection of the diverse range of computational approaches being developed to support synthesis in the major strands of synthesis research - composition, retrieval, adaptation and change. In addition, the book contains an editorial introduction to the chapters and the broader context of research it represents, and a supplementary bibliography to help locate this broader expanse of work. With the wide variety of methods and tools covered, this book is intended primarily for graduate students and researchers in product design and development; but it will also be beneficial for educators and prac titioners of engineering design, for whom it should act as a valuable sourcebook of ideas for teaching or enhancing design creativity.
