Many research and development efforts have been made for automated compliance checking of building designs with regulatory requirements, but there is a lack of a non-proprietary and user-understandable representation of building regulations to support automated compliance checking in the construction domain that is experimentally tested for understandability and reading speed. This research investigates a logic-based representation and tree-based visualization method for building regulatory requirements. The logic-based representation is based on classic logic programming language and can directly support automated compliance checking. The tree-based visualization is expected to improve the understandability and reading speed of the logic-based representation. Therefore, this method attempts to add to the limited research in non-proprietary and user-understandable representation of building regulations that is experimentally tested for understandability and reading speed. To test the understandability and reading speed of regulatory requirements using this representation and visualization method, a survey was conducted to compare different representations, namely, text, logic-based, and tree-based. Statistical analysis of the survey results shows that the proposed tree-based visualization method can significantly improve the understandability and reading speed of the logic-based regulatory requirement representation and this visualization method is at a comparable status with the original text representation of regulatory requirements in terms of understandability and reading speed. (1) The investigated logic-based representation and tree-based visualization method for regulatory requirements serves as one potential non-proprietary and user-understandable representation of building regulations; (2) this research shows that computable representations of regulatory requirements can achieve understandability and reading speed that are comparable to the original text representation through tree-based visualization; and (3) this research reveals that the tree-based visualization of regulatory requirements improves the understandability and reading speed of regulatory requirements when such use is compared to the computable logic-based representation.

中文翻译：

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基于逻辑的表示和基于树的可视化方法来建立法规要求

已经进行了许多研究和开发工作来对具有法规要求的建筑设计进行自动符合性检查，但是缺乏一种非专有且用户易于理解的建筑法规来支持经过实验测试的建筑领域的自动符合性检查便于理解和阅读速度。这项研究调查了用于建立法规要求的基于逻辑的表示形式和基于树的可视化方法。基于逻辑的表示基于经典的逻辑编程语言，并且可以直接支持自动合规性检查。基于树的可视化有望提高基于逻辑的表示的可理解性和读取速度。因此，这种方法试图增加对非专有和用户可理解的建筑法规表示的有限研究，该表示已通过实验测试了易读性和读取速度。为了使用这种表示和可视化方法测试法规要求的可理解性和阅读速度，进行了一项调查以比较不同的表示形式，即文本，基于逻辑和基于树的表示形式。对调查结果的统计分析表明，所提出的基于树的可视化方法可以显着提高基于逻辑的法规要求表示的可理解性和读取速度，并且该可视化方法与法规要求的原始文本表示形式具有可比性可理解性和阅读速度。（1）研究的基于逻辑的表示和基于树的可视化的法规要求方法可作为一种潜在的非专有和用户可理解的建筑法规表示；（2）这项研究表明，通过基于树的可视化，法规要求的可计算表示形式可以实现与原始文本表示形式相当的可理解性和阅读速度；（3）这项研究表明，将树状法规要求可视化与基于可计算逻辑的表示法相比，可以提高法规要求的可理解性和阅读速度。（2）这项研究表明，通过基于树的可视化，法规要求的可计算表示形式可以实现与原始文本表示形式相当的可理解性和阅读速度；（3）这项研究表明，将树状法规要求可视化与基于可计算逻辑的表示法相比，可以提高法规要求的可理解性和阅读速度。（2）这项研究表明，通过基于树的可视化，法规要求的可计算表示形式可以实现与原始文本表示形式相当的可理解性和阅读速度；（3）这项研究表明，将树状法规要求可视化与基于可计算逻辑的表示法相比，可以提高法规要求的可理解性和阅读速度。