First, the design problem must be stated in a way that a solution can be reached. The most time-consuming phase is selecting the tools that will be used to analyze a design and creating custom analyses. Pointer has a bidirectional interface so it can work with any parametric computer-aided design program, according to Synaps. Rather than taking an expert system approach that relies on a previous design, Pointer determines whether a linear, gradient, simplex or genetic optimization algorithm is best. The system also has a training feature that allows it to recall approaches that have worked in the past.
Spikes indicate analysis code crashes.