Digital Design Media

Abstract

Digital design media is the basis on which design information can be shared across a network. The title of this chapter is borrowed from a book, (Mitchell 1995), in which a more comprehensive treatment of the representation of designs as digital data and the ensuing implications are given. There are many ways to categorise the representation of design descriptions, digital media being one view. Here, we focus on four different types of digital media: images, CAD models, text, and hypermedia. Realising that other media, such as sound, movies, and virtual reality, are relevant to the representation of a design description, we have selected these three as the most commonly used digital media in current virtual design studios. A consideration of the conceptual organisation of the representation of designs is given in Chapter 5, whereas here we look at how different media allow the designer to express and manipulate different ideas.