Patent Document ID: 6012036
Application ID: 08635418
Patent Flag: 1

Claim One:
1. A method which is a combination of steps, including computer implemented steps, for producing a layout of a facility comprising a plurality of building units, said facility serving a function which is dependent upon performance of activities by live occupants of the facility which define a plurality of facility operational criteria, said layout to be a candidate in an attempt to optimize positioning of the buildings in a ground site in accordance with the joint criteria of effective performance of said function and least crowdedness, said method comprising the steps of: selecting a quadrilateral global area of a predetermined ground site; selecting a set of n building units; generating at least one experimental-Cartesian-configuration-of-building units in the global area without using the population density index (PDI) crowdedness assessment methodology; collecting at least first and second sets of matrices of data representing degrees of association of a corresponding at least first and second individual facility operational criteria among all possible pairs of building units, said operational criteria including at least one criterion from the class of criteria consisting of (I) an inter-building-unit transition frequency matrix, (II) a sequential activity dependencies matrix, and (III) a shared used of building units matrix, and further said data being collected by at least one of the collection methodologies from the class of such methodologies consisting of (i) analysis of activities of the facility operation, (ii) desk audits, (iii) time and motion studies, and (iv) time-lapse photography; generating, through the employment of computer implemenation, a corresponding at least two non-metric, multidimensional scaling (MDS), building units and operational criterion (MDS) matrices, each building units and operational criterion MDS matrix being generated by combining a matrix of data based on a one experimental configuration of said at least one experimental-building units-configuration and a matrix of data representing degrees of association of the corresponding facility operational criterion among respective possible pairs of building units in accordance with MDS methodology; generating, through the employment of computer implementation, a composite-facility-operational-criteria-Cartesian-configuration-of-buildin g units representing a statistical optimization of building unit locations responsive to said at least first and second facility operational criteria, the generation of said facility-operational-criteria-Cartesian-configuration of building units including combining the at least two building units and operational criterion criterion MDS matrices using an iterative non-linear stress function with all of the building units involved in this combining step uniformly weighted, to thereby determine a layout of buildings in said global area which represents a fit of least badness of building layout, with the objective of effectively performing said activities; circumscribing the n building units of said facility-operational-criteria-configuration-of-building-units with a first convex hull, and circumscribing said one experimental configuration with a second convex hull; calculating, through the employment of computer implementation, the respective polygon area, A.sub.poly, of the first and second convex hulls, the calculation of A.sub.poly for each convex hull including (i) partitioning same into n.sub.p -2 component mutually exclusive component triangles which compositely overlap the convex hull, where n.sub.1 is the number of perimetrical building units along the convex hull and (ii) calculating the area, K, of each component triangle according to the equation ##EQU35## where s.sub.1, s.sub.2, and s.sub.3 are the lengths of the sides of a component triangle and ##EQU36## and (iii) summing all the areas K of the n.sub.p -2 component triangles; calculating, through the employment of computer implementation, a composite-facility-operational-criteria-MDS-matrix-population-density-of-b uilding units-index, PDI.sub.CPOSMDS, based upon the polygon area, A.sub.poly, of the first convex hull, and calculating, through the employment of computer implementation, a normative-population-density-index-of-the-configuration-of-building units-circumscribed-by-the-second-convex-hull-index, PDI.sub.NORM, based upon the polygon area, A.sub.poly, of the second convex hull, said calculations being made using the relationship ##EQU37## where d=average Euclidean distance among all possible pairs of the building units; and deciding whether said facility-operational-criteria-building units-configuration is acceptable as a candidate layout relative to said experimental configuration based upon a comparison of the density index, PDI.sub.CPOSMDS, with the density index, PDI.sub.NORM, and if so to print out a plot, through the employment of computer implementation, representing the locations of said buildings in said ground site according to said configuration.