Iestyn Jowers

Shape exploration of designs in a style: Toward generation of product designs

Generative specifications have been used to systematically codify established styles in several design fields including architecture and product design. We examine how designers explore new designs in the early stages of product development as they manipulate and interpret shape representations. A model of exploration is proposed with four types of shape descriptions (contour, decomposition, structure, and design) and the results of the exploration are presented. Generative rules are used to provide consistent stylistic changes first within a given decomposition and second through changing the structure. Style expresses both the analytical order of explanation and the synthetic complexity of exploration. The model of exploration is consistent with observations of design practice. The application of generative design methods demonstrates a logical pattern for early stage design exploration. The model provides the basis for tools to assist designers in exploring families of designs in a style and for following new interpretations that move the exploration from one family to another.

Implementation of Curved Shape Grammars

Research into shape grammar implementation has been largely concerned with rectilinear shapes and there has been limited research into implementation on shapes composed of curves. This reflects developments of the shape grammar formalism which has been defined largely according to straight lines, planes, and associated volumes. In this paper, implementation of shape grammars on curved shapes is examined using algorithms for shape operations on shapes composed of parametric curves. These algorithms have been implemented in a shape grammar interpreter for shapes composed of quadratic Bézier curves, which is illustrated via application of a shape grammar that generates Celtic knotwork patterns. Implementing shape grammars on shapes composed of Bézier curves highlights difficulties that arise when the shape grammar formalism is applied to curved shapes, and the paper concludes with a discussion that explores these difficulties and indicates potential implications for the shape grammar formalism.

The construction of curved shapes

Application of a shape grammar involves the repetitive task of matching and replacing subshapes of a design under transformation, and as such is well suited for computer implementation. As a result, ever since the conception of the shape grammar formalism, efforts have been made to develop computer programs that automate shape grammar applications. Much of this effort has been directed towards the problem of subshape detection, which involves recognising subshapes embedded in a design. Solutions to this problem have been presented for shapes composed of rectilinear geometric elements, such as straight lines, and algorithms based on these solutions have been implemented in a variety of shape grammar interpreters. However, there has been less research concerning the solution of the subshape detection problem for shapes composed of nonrectilinear geometric elements, such as curve segments. In this paper a method of intrinsic matching is presented, which enables comparison of the embedding properties of parametric curves. This method has been employed in order to develop shape algorithms which can be implemented in shape grammar interpreters for shapes composed of parametric curve segments, arranged in two-dimensional or three-dimensional space.

Computer Aided Design: An Early Shape Synthesis System

Today’s computer aided design systems enable the creation of digital product definitions that are widely used throughout the design process, for example in analysis or manufacturing. Typically, such product definitions are created after the bulk of [shape] designing has been completed because their creation requires a detailed knowledge of the shape that is to be defined. Consequently, there is a gulf between the exploration processes that result in the selection of a design concept and the creation of its definition. In order to address this distinction, between design exploration and product definition, understanding of how designers create and manipulate shapes is necessary. The research outlined in this paper results from work concerned with addressing these issues, with the long term goal of informing a new generation of computer aided design systems which support design exploration as well as the production of product definitions. This research is based on the shape grammar formalism.

Shape exploration in design: formalising and supporting a transformational process

The process of sketching can support the sort of transformational thinking that is seen as essential for the interpretation and reinterpretation of ideas in innovative design. Such transformational thinking, however, is not yet well supported by computer-aided design systems. In this paper, outcomes of experimental investigations into the mechanics of sketching are described, in particular those employed by practicing architects and industrial designers as they responded to a series of conceptual design tasks. Analyses of the experimental data suggest that the interactions of designers with their sketches can be formalised according to a finite number of generalised shape rules. A set of shape rules, formalising the reinterpretation and transformations of shapes, e.g. through deformation or restructuring, is presented. These rules are suggestive of the manipulations that need to be afforded in computational tools intended to support designers in design exploration. Accordingly, the results of the experimental investigations informed the development of a prototype shape synthesis system, and a discussion is presented in which the future requirements of such systems are explored.

Design and emotional expressiveness of Gertie (An open hardware robotic desk lamp)

This paper introduces Gertie the Robotic Desk Lamp, a novel research platform that has five degrees of freedom, and is equipped with a camera and microphone in its lamp shade. These features mean that Gertie is a flexible and low-cost resource for conducting research into cognitive products and human-robot interaction. It will be available as an open hardware on http://www.opengertie.org/. Gertie was designed from first principles, and assembled using off the shelf electronic components and parts fabricated using a 3D printer. In this paper, the design of Gertie is presented, and its application as a research platform is described. Gertie has already been used to investigate a problem of simple object tracking, building on computer vision algorithms. Furthermore, it has also been used to investigate and replicate emotional body language. By imitating human body language Gertie is capable of expressing four of the basic Ekman emotions: 1) joy; 2) sadness; 3) surprise; and 4) fear. This work was validated using an online study, which investigates how well the emotions expressed by Gertie are recognized by human audiences. In total 84 participants were shown one video for each of the four emotions and they were asked to choose from a list of seven emotions, which they thought was displayed by Gertie. While joy and sadness were recognized very reliably with 81% and 88% of all people giving the correct answer, fear and surprise were more commonly misinterpreted as surprise and disgust. However, all emotions were recognized above the chance level percentage of 14%.

Shape Interpretation with Design Computing

How information is interpreted has significant impact on how it can be used. This is particularly important in design where information from a wide variety of sources is used in a wide variety of contexts and in a wide variety of ways. This paper is concerned with the information that is created, modified and analysed during design processes, specifically with the information that is represented in shapes. It investigates how design computing seeks to support these processes, and the difficulties that arise when it is necessary to consider alternative interpretations of shape. The aim is to establish the problem of shape interpretation as a general challenge for research in design computing, rather than a difficulty that is to be overcome within specific processes. Shape interpretations are common characteristics of several areas of enquiry in design computing. This paper reviews these, brings an integrated perspective and draws conclusions about how this underlying process can be supported.

Computer-aided design synthesis: an application of shape grammars

Computer-aided design systems enable the creation of digital product definitions that are widely used throughout the design process. Typically, such product definitions are created after the bulk of [shape] designing has been completed because their creation requires a detailed knowledge of the shape that is to be defined. Shape grammars have been applied in a range of domains to generate design shapes that conform to a given style early in design processes. A key challenge that restricts their implementation lies in the detection of embedded shapes, sub-shapes, which are manipulated according to shape rules to create new shapes. The automatic detection of sub-shapes is an open research question within the shape grammar community. The research reported in this paper explored the use of computer vision techniques to address this problem; the results achieved to date show real promise. An early prototype is presented and demonstrated on a designers sketches.

Interpretation of geometric shapes: an eye movement study

This paper describes a study that seeks to explore the correlation between eye movements and the interpretation of geometric shapes. This study is intended to inform the development of an eye tracking interface for computational tools to support and enhance the natural interaction required in creative design. A common criticism of computational design tools is that they do not enable manipulation of designed shapes according to all perceived features. Instead the manipulations afforded are limited by formal structures of shapes. This research examines the potential for eye movement data to be used to recognise and make available for manipulation the perceived features in shapes. The objective of this study was to analyse eye movement data with the intention of recognising moments in which an interpretation of shape is made. Results suggest that fixation duration and saccade amplitude prove to be consistent indicators of shape interpretation.

Formal Descriptions of Material Manipulations

Shape computation in design is never purely limited to visual aspects and ideally includes material aspects as well. The physicality of designing introduces a wide range of variables for designers to tackle within the design process. We present a simple design exercise realised in four stages where we physically manipulate perforated cardboard sheets as a case to make material variables explicit in the computation. The emphasis is on representing sensory aspects rather than easily quantifiable properties more suitable for simulations. Our explorations demonstrate the use of visual rules to represent actions, variables and form as well as how to control the variables to create new results, both desired and surprising, in materially informed ways.