Creativity Meets Constraints - Sketch-Based CAD for Industrial Designers with Engineering Constraint Management

该奖项的研究目标是使设计师能够通过基于草图的建模界面开发3D产品形式，同时允许他们无缝地管理和适应已知的工程约束。这项研究将产生概念设计的新方法，在这种方法中，需要繁琐的下游工作的无指导的勘探活动将被一组有指导的、自由形式的设计活动所取代。通过允许将工程约束与表单生成同时考虑，本研究旨在使产品设计更加精简、集中和高效，同时最大限度地减少昂贵的后期设计工作。主要的研究任务和由此产生的贡献将是一套新颖的计算技术和相关的软件，可以在尺寸、布局和人体工程学限制的情况下进行概念形状的创建和探索。如果成功，这项研究的结果将通过允许重要的设计标准与概念形式设计同时管理和应用来增强当前的设计实践。反过来，这将有助于减轻当前设计设置中可能发生的许多代价高昂的冲突。这项工作还将通过建立一个实用的基于草图的3D设计平台来增强以人为中心的设计研究和教育的基础设施，几乎不需要或不需要实体建模专业知识。研究人员将指导本科生进行独立的研究项目，并在他们所在机构定期提供的设计课程中提供由此产生的软件。最后，所提出的系统的新颖互动功能将用于通过教育和推广计划吸引非工程师和K-12学生参与工程和技术创新。

The research objective of this award is to enable designers to develop 3D product forms through a sketch-based modeling interface, while allowing them to seamlessly manage and accommodate known engineering constraints. This research will result in new methods for conceptual design in which the unguided exploration activities necessitating tedious downstream efforts are replaced by a set of guided, yet free-form design activities. By allowing engineering constraints to be considered concurrently with form generation, the proposed study aims to make product design significantly more streamlined, focused, and efficient, while minimizing costly post-design efforts. The primary research task and the resulting contribution will be a suite of novel computational techniques and associated software that enable conceptual shape creation and exploration in the presence of dimensional, layout, and ergonomic constraints.If successful, the results of this research will enhance current design practices by allowing important design criteria to be managed and applied concurrently with conceptual form design. This, in turn, will help alleviate many of the costly conflicts that are likely to occur in the current design settings. This effort will also enhance the infrastructure for human-centric design research and education by establishing a practical sketch-based 3D design platform, requiring little or no solid modeling expertise. The investigators will mentor undergraduate students on independent research projects and make the resulting software available in the design courses they regularly offer in their institutions. Finally, the novel interactive features of the proposed system will be used to engage non-engineers and K-12 students with engineering and technological innovation through educational and outreach programs.