Historical Background of the Visual Simulation Models in Architectural Design

It is well known that every sort of visualization model has its own capacity to represent the reality and designers'concepts of space. To the authors'knowledge, there are very few attempts to measure and compare their relative potential power of presentation. Given this lack of academic studies, it would be necessary to give a historical background on the use of visual models. Basically those tools could be divided into two main types: traditional visula techniques such as drawings, scale models and most advance technological tools ranging from basic slidesand films to recentlydeveloped techniquessuch as relatoscope, and computer aided simulation models. This paper covers the historical background of visual models.