Horst Nowacki – författare

This volume documents the concepts, experiences, results, and conclusions of the ESPRIT project NEUTRABAS (Neutral Product Definition Database for Large Multifunctional Systems). It deals with the development of a database for large multifunctional systems, in particular for ships and their multitudinous, complex subsystems. NEUTRABAS was the first European project aiming at an international standard based on ISO standard 10303 (STEP) methodology to define a comprehensive information model for ships and similar products of complex functionality, which will serve for the exchange and long term storage of product information. NEUTRABAS contributed to the first generation of shipbuilding product models and gained first experiences in implementing databases exploiting the new technology of the STEP standard.

The design, construction and verification of complex two- and three-dimensional shapes in architecture and ship geometry have always been a particularly demanding part of the art of engineering. Before science-based structural design and analysis were applied in the construction industries, i.e., before 1800, the task of conceiving, documenting and fabricating such shapes constituted the most significant interface between practitioner's knowledge and learned knowledge, above all in geometry. The history of shape development in these two disciplines therefore promises especially valuable insights into the knowledge history of shape creation. This volume is a collection of contributions by outstanding scholars in their fields of study, archaeology, history of architecture and ship design, in classic antiquity, the Middle Ages and the early modern period. The volume presents a comparative knowledge history in these two distinct branches of construction engineering.