A generative design technique for exploring shape variations

Because innovative and creative design is essential to a successful product, this work brings the benefits of generative design in the conceptual phase of the product development process so that designers/engineers can effectively explore and create ingenious designs and make better design decisions. We proposed a state-of-the-art generative design technique (GDT), called Space-filling-GDT (Sf-GDT), for the creation of innovative designs. The proposed Sf-GDT has the ability to create variant optimal design alternatives for a given computer-aided design (CAD) model. An effective GDT should generate design alternatives that cover the entire design space. Toward that end, the criterion of space-filling is utilized, which uniformly distribute designs in the design space thereby giving a designer a better understanding of possible design options. To avoid creating similar designs, a weighted-grid-search approach is developed and integrated into the Sf-GDT. One of the core contributions of this work lies in the ability of Sf-GDT to explore hybrid design spaces consisting of both continuous and discrete parameters either with or without geometric constraints. A parameter-free optimization technique, called Jaya algorithm, is integrated into the Sf-GDT to generate optimal designs. Three different design parameterization and space formulation strategies; explicit, interactive, and autonomous, are proposed to set up a promising search region(s) for optimization. Two user interfaces; a web-based and a Windows-based, are also developed to utilize Sf-GDT with the existing CAD software having parametric design abilities. Based on the experiments in this study, Sf-GDT can generate creative design alternatives for a given model and outperforms existing state-of-the-art techniques.     

Creating shared design thinking process for collaborative design

Shared understanding about both the design content and the design process has significant meaning for collaborative design, which influences the quality of final products. Existing approaches have difficulties in supporting designers to structure and share their design thinking while they are performing practical tasks. In this paper we propose Shared Design Thinking Process Model (S-DTPM) to support collaborative design, which is based on co-evolutionary design theory and existing design rationale frameworks. Two principles for S-DTPM have been considered. The elements and representation schema of S-DTPM have been discussed in detail. Based on S-DTPM, a prototype system has been developed for supporting collaborative thinking and capturing shared design rationale. An example, collaborative design is taken to validate the proposed model. S-DTPM can help designers to create shared understanding about the design as well as record shared design thinking process for future use such as design review, design change and redesign.     

An IGA-based design support system for realistic and practical fashion designs

In this paper, a customised fashion design system is proposed for non-professional users (general customers) to create their preferred fashion designs in a user-friendly way. The proposed sketch design system consists of a sketch representation and composing method, an interactive genetic algorithm (IGA)-based design model, and a user-friendly interface. The sketch representation and composing method generates feasible design sketches, based on the design parameters defined by the IGA-based design model, and the sketches are presented to customers via the user-friendly interface. Experimental results have demonstrated that the proposed system is effective in generating fashion design sketches reflecting users’ preference.     

Interactive design of 2D car profiles with aerodynamic feedback

The design of car shapes requires a delicate balance between aesthetic and performance. While fluid simulation provides the means to evaluate the aerodynamic performance of a given shape, its computational cost hinders its usage during the early explorative phases of design, when aesthetic is decided upon. We present an interactive system to assist designers in creating aerodynamic car profiles. Our system relies on a neural surrogate model to predict fluid flow around car shapes, providing fluid visualization and shape optimization feedback to designers as soon as they sketch a car profile. Compared to prior work that focused on time-averaged fluid flows, we describe how to train our model on instantaneous, synchronized observations extracted from multiple pre-computed simulations, such that we can visualize and optimize for dynamic flow features, such as vortices. Furthermore, we architectured our model to support gradient-based shape optimization within a learned latent space of car profiles. In addition to regularizing the optimization process, this latent space and an associated encoder-decoder allows us to input and output car profiles in a bitmap form, without any explicit parameterization of the car boundary. Finally, we designed our model to support pointwise queries of fluid properties around car shapes, allowing us to adapt computational cost to application needs. As an illustration, we only query our model along streamlines for flow visualization, we query it in the vicinity of the car for drag optimization, and we query it behind the car for vortex attenuation.     

An Internet-based intelligent design system for injection moulds

The rapid growth of Internet and information technologies in recent years provides a solution to support and facilitate collaborative product developments among different geographically distributed enterprises. An effective and feasible tool to aid the collaborative development of injection moulds can be realized by developing an Internet-based mould design system as one of the modules of a collaborative product development system. This paper presents a prototype Internet-based intelligent design system for injection moulds. The architecture of the system consists of an interactive KB mould design system embedded in an Internet environment. A Java-enabled solution together with artificial intelligence techniques is employed to develop such a networked interactive CAD system. In this system, the computational module, the knowledge base module and the graphic module for generating mould features are integrated within an interactive CAD-based framework. The knowledge base of the system would be accessed by mould designers through interactive programs so that their own intelligence and experience could also be incorporated with the total mould design. The approach adopted both speeds up the design process and facilitates design standardization which in turn increases the speed of mould manufacture. A practical case study is presented to illustrate the operations of the Internet-based mould design system.     

From early virtual garment simulation to interactive fashion design

Virtual garment design and simulation involves a combination of a large range of techniques, involving mechanical simulation, collision detection, and user interface techniques for creating garments. Here, we perform an extensive review of the evolution of these techniques made in the last decade to bring virtual garments to the reach of computer applications not only aimed at graphics, but also at CAD techniques for the garment industry.As a result of the advances in the developments of virtual garment simulation technologies, we then detail a framework which fits the needs of the garment industry of virtual garment design and prototyping, concentrating on interactive design, simulation and visualization features. The framework integrates innovative tools aimed towards efficiency and quality in the process of garment design and prototyping, taking advantage of state-of-the-art algorithms from the field of mechanical simulation, animation and rendering.     

ArchiDNA: An interactive system for creating 2D and 3D conceptual drawings in architectural design

We present an interactive system called ArchiDNA for creating 2D and 3D conceptual drawings in architectural design. We developed a novel principle of shape generation called match-and-attach by analyzing drawing styles of a contemporary architect, Peter Eisenman. The process consists of user interaction techniques and a set of rules that decide how one or more shapes attach to another shape. One key ingredient of our process is a unique concept for the interactive semi-automatic shape generation that uses the combination of algorithmic rules of a computer and designers’ manual inputs. These techniques enable designers to use CAD software in the early stages of architectural designs to explore conceptual building forms. ArchiDNA dynamically responds to drawing inputs, configures 2D shapes, and converts them to 3D shapes in a similar style. We intend to complement existing CAD software and computational drawing pipelines for intuitive 2D and 3D conceptual drawing creation.     

User-system cooperative evolutionary computation for both quantitative and qualitative objective optimization in image processing filter design

This study proposes a cooperative evolutionary optimization method between a user and system (CEUS) for problems involving quantitative and qualitative optimization criteria. In a general interactive evolutionary computation (IEC) model, both the system and user have their own role in the evolution, such as individual reproduction or evaluation. In contrast, the proposed CEUS allows the user to dynamically change the allocation of search roles between the system and user, resulting in simultaneous optimization of qualitative and quantitative objective functions without increasing user fatigue. This is achieved by a combination of user evaluation prediction and the integration of interactive and non-interactive EC. For instance, the system performs a global search at the beginning, the user then intensifies the search area, and finally the system conducts a local search in the intensified search area. This study applies CEUS to an image processing filter design problem that involves both quantitative (filter output accuracy) and qualitative (filter behavior) criteria. Experiments have shown that the proposed CEUS can design image filters in accordance with user preferences, and CEUS interacting with a non-naive user enhanced the initial global search so that it converged and found a reasonable solution more than four times faster than a non-interactive search.     

Application of interactive genetic algorithm to fashion design

In general, computer-aided design support systems have got an approach of traditional artificial intelligence, which statistically analyzes data such as the behavior of designer, to extract formal design behavior. This approach, however, can neither deal with continuous change of fashion nor reflect personal taste well, as it just depends on large amount of collected data. To overcome this sort of problem interactive genetic algorithm (IGA) has been recently proposed, as a new trend of evolutionary computation. IGA uses human's response as fitness value when the fitness function cannot be explicitly defined. This enables IGA to be applied to artistic domains, and we propose a fashion design aid system using it. Unlike the previous works that attempt to model the dress design by several spline curves, the proposed system is based on a new encoding scheme that practically describes a dress with three parts: body and neck, sleeve, and skirt. By incorporating the domain-specific knowledge into the genotype, we could develop a more realistic design aid system for women’s dress. We have implemented the system with OpenGL and VRML to enhance the system interface. The experiments with several human subjects show that the IGA approach to dress design aid system is promising.     

A distributed and interactive system to integrated design and simulation for collaborative product development

The goal of applying collaborative product development in industry has raised the need to develop software tools supporting system integration and group collaboration. Current methods and tools mainly focus on the collaborative creation of design components and assemblies. However, few of them support the collaborative work in developing simulation models so that proposed design concepts and solutions can be evaluated by integrating expertise from several disciplines. The purpose of this research is to develop a distributed and interactive system on which designers and experts can work together to create, integrate and run simulations for engineering design. To develop such a system, a number of issues, e.g. effectiveness and efficiency of modeling work, the re-use of models, interaction and cooperation, accuracy of simulation, collaborative operation on models, etc., need to be addressed. This paper describes an open architecture to developing simulations for engineering design in a distributed and collaborative environment, identifies a set of key issues raised in this architecture, and presents the techniques employed in our solution.     

广告设计之互动创意

在激烈的市场竞争中,无论是国际还是国内的企业,都把提高广告设计水平作为提升竞争力的一种手段,广告设计创新显得越来越迫切。本文试图从互动角度来探讨广告设计创意,目的有两个:一个是拓宽广告设计理论的研究空间,预测互动创意作为一种广告设计创新途径的未来发展和可能;第二个目的是为广告设计实践总结和归纳新的思考和创作方法,以拓宽设计实践者的创意思维空间,丰富表现语言。本文通过研究国内外最新的广告设计成功案例,探讨了广告设计之互动创意的途径和方法,期望能对相关设计领域的研究和实践提供参考价值。     

Free-form shapes: An integrated CAD/CAM system

After describing the primary aims and the structure of the implemented CAD/CAM system, the interactive design process is presented. Particular attention is paid to those components which are of primary importance due to their direct contact with the user. A CNC option for real-time tool-path generation and some details of roughing and finishing are also presented.     

A fast interactive reverse-engineering system

A new method of reverse engineering for fast, simple and interactive acquisition and reconstruction of a virtual three-dimensional (3D) model is presented. We propose an active stereo acquisition system, which makes use of two infrared cameras and a wireless active-pen device, supported by a reconstruction method based on subdivision surfaces. In the 3D interactive hand sketching process the user draws and refines the 3D style-curves, which characterize the shape to be constructed, by simply dragging the active-pen device; then the system automatically produces a low-resolution mesh that is naturally refined through subdivision surfaces. Several examples demonstrate the ability of the proposed advanced design methodology to produce complex 3D geometric models by the interactive and iterative process that provides the user with a real-time visual feedback on the ongoing work.     

User-centric image segmentation using an interactive parameter adaptation tool

Creating successful machine vision systems often begins a process of developing customised reliable image segmentation algorithms for the detection, and possibly categorisation of regions of interest within images. This can require significant investment of time from both the image processing and the domain experts to set up. Frequently this process is mediated via interviews, or language-based systems which may not fully capture the visual decision-making process of the domain experts. The resulting algorithms can also often be “brittle” in the sense of being highly specialised to the task for which they are tuned, and are consequently sensitive to changes in operating conditions or image specifications.One approach is to use interactive evolution for developing rapidly reconfigurable systems in which the users’ tacit knowledge and requirements can be elicited and used for finding the appropriate parameters to achieve the required segmentation without any need for specialised knowledge of the underlying machine vision systems. This paper presents an interactive tool that can be used to quickly and easily evolve optimal image segmentation parameters from scratch. Building on previous work, the new algorithm reported here incorporates user-guided local search and makes the fitness function more flexible to facilitate the underlying multi-objective decision-making process.One of the key requirements for any interactive system is a high level of usability, both in terms of effectiveness—being able to build accurate models that meet end-user requirements—and efficiency—being able to achieve the required results within a minimal amount of time and undue effort. The system described in this paper has been designed with these considerations in mind to ensure a high level of user-experience of the interaction process. We present results from a series of experiments with a range of users to analyse the effect of the improvements that have been made over the previous system. The efficiency of the tool is also tested with “novice users”, and its usability by “novice users” is analysed.     

基于原型的三维服装款式智能CAD方法

服装业的发展对服装CAD技术的智能化、立体化提出了要求。该文在研究三维服装款式变化规律的基础上,构建三维服装款式数学原型;为了智能控制三维原型的变化,采用三次样条曲线和双三次曲面片构建三维服装原型;分析原型变换控制参数,研究款式变化与原型控制参数之间的关系,总结归纳出款式设计知识,建立相应知识库及推理机制。以服装衣领为例,实现了以款式描述输入驱动的智能衣领设计。     

A framework for collaborative top-down assembly design

This paper presents a new system framework for collaborative top-down assembly design. Different from current computer-aided design (CAD) systems, the framework allows a group of designers to collaboratively conduct product design in a top-down manner. In our framework, a multi-level and distributed assembly model is adopted to effectively support collaborative top-down assembly design. Meanwhile, fine-granularity collaborative design functionalities are provided. First, the coupled structural parameters involved in the distributed skeleton models of the product can be collaboratively determined by the correlative designers based on fuzzy and utility theory. Second, agent based design variation propagation is achieved to ensure the consistency of the multi-level and distributed assembly model during the whole design process. Third, collaborative design of assembly interfaces between the components assigned to different designers is supported. The prototype implementation shows that our framework works well for supporting practical collaborative top-down assembly design.     

面向特征的CAD集成系统交互接口的设计

本文从ＣＡＤ／ＣＡＭ集成思想出发,认真分析了传统ＣＡＤ系统在集成过程中存在的问题。提出了一个基于制造环境的ＣＡＤ系统设计模式,并基于此设计了面向特征,具有工艺信息反馈和限制的ＣＡＤ交互接口,为设计者提供了一种自然的,能反映所设计零件形状的可能加工方式和一定的加工工艺分析信息的交互界面,并具备了图示化等特点。     

基于交互式遗传算法的个性化建筑物外观设计

交互式遗传算法通过交互式的手段以用户对个体的评估来替代传统遗传算法的适应度函数设计，在艺术创作、设计等偏向于人类主观感受的领域具有很高的应用价值和广泛的现实意义。该文提出并设计了一个面向建筑物外观设计的基于交互式遗传算法的建筑设计计算机辅助系统，通过交互式手段以用户对个体评估来替代传统GA对适应度函数值进行自动计算，将两个专业领域知识的结合和互补，为建筑设计人员能够更快、更好地满足客户提出的个性化要求提供帮助。该系统从应用层次验证了算法的可行性和实用性。