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Featured researches published by Miquel Prats.


Ai Edam Artificial Intelligence for Engineering Design, Analysis and Manufacturing | 2006

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

Miquel Prats; Christopher Earl; Steve Garner; Iestyn Jowers

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.


Archive | 2006

EXPLORATION THROUGH DRAWINGS IN THE CONCEPTUAL STAGE OF PRODUCT DESIGN

Miquel Prats; Christopher Earl

This paper argues that sequences of exploratory drawings - constructed by designers movements and decisions - trace systematic and logical paths from ideas to designs. This argument has three parts. First, sequences of exploratory sketches produced by product designers, against the same task specification, are analyzed in terms of the cognitive categories of reinterpretation, emergence and abstraction. Second, a computational model is outlined for the process of exploration through drawing and third the model is applied to elucidate the logic in the sequences of exploratory sketches examined earlier.


Third International Conference on Design Computing and Cognition DCC08 | 2008

Categorisation of designs according to preference values for shape rules

Sungwoo Lim; Miquel Prats; Scott Curland Chase; Steve Garner

Shape grammars have been used to explore design spaces through design generation according to sets of shape rules with a recursive process. Although design space exploration is a persistent issue in computational design research, there have been few studies regarding the provision of more preferable and refined outcomes to designers. This paper presents an approach for the categorisation of design outcomes from shape grammar systems to support individual preferences via two customised viewpoints: (i) absolute preference values of shape rules and (ii) relative preference values of shape rules with shape rule classification levels with illustrative examples.


International Journal of Architectural Computing | 2008

Shape exploration in design: formalising and supporting a transformational process

Sungwoo Lim; Miquel Prats; Iestyn Jowers; Scott Curland Chase; Steven Garner; Alison McKay

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.


eye tracking research & application | 2010

Interpretation of geometric shapes: an eye movement study

Miquel Prats; Steve Garner; Iestyn Jowers; Alison McKay; Nieves Pedreira

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.


Design Studies | 2009

Transforming shape in design: observations from studies of sketching

Miquel Prats; Sungwoo Lim; Iestyn Jowers; Steve W. Garner; Scott Curland Chase


Computer-aided Design | 2013

Evaluating an eye tracking interface for a two-dimensional sketch editor

Iestyn Jowers; Miquel Prats; Alison McKay; Steve Garner


New Frontiers: Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Computer-Aided Architectural Design Research in Asia | 2010

A study of emergence in the generation of Islamic geometric patterns

Iestyn Jowers; Miquel Prats; Hesham Eissa; Ji-Hyun Lee


Archive | 2009

Design synthesis and shape generation

Alison McKay; Scott Curland Chase; Steven Garner; Iestyn Jowers; Miquel Prats; David C. Hogg; Hau Hing Chau; Alan de Pennington; Christopher Earl; Sungwoo Lim


sketch based interfaces and modeling | 2008

Supporting reinterpretation in computer-aided conceptual design

Iestyn Jowers; Miquel Prats; Sungwoo Lim; Alison McKay; Steve Garner; Scott Curland Chase

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Sungwoo Lim

Loughborough University

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