The following terms are important for understanding dimension-driven cell creation:

Constraint — a piece of information that limits or controls a construction.

Construction — an element (point, infinite line, circle, ellipse, or B-spline curve's control polygon) that lets constraints locate, delimit or arrange other elements. For example, a construction line can be the center line of a symmetric design.

Well-constrained — a set of constructions that is completely defined by constraints or is constant and has no redundant constraints. There is generally more than one feasible solution for a set of well-constrained constructions, but the choice is usually clear.

Under-constrained — a set of constructions that is not completely defined by constraints and is not constant. An under-constrained construction has many possible "solutions" and is unacceptably ambiguous.

Redundant — A constraint that is applied to a set of constructions that are already well-constrained. A redundant constraint may or may not be inconsistent with other constraints, but, in either case, it adds no useful information.

Degrees of freedom — Number that sums up a dimension-driven cell's ambiguity.

Solve — To construct the design from a given set of constraints and show what remains to be defined.