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，同时允许他们无缝管理和适应已知的工程约束。这项研究将导致概念设计的新方法，其中需要繁琐的下游工作的无指导的探索活动被一组指导，但自由形式的设计活动所取代。通过允许工程约束被认为是同时与形式生成，拟议的研究旨在使产品设计显着更加精简，集中和高效，同时尽量减少昂贵的设计后的努力。主要的研究任务和由此产生的贡献将是一套新的计算技术和相关的软件，使概念形状的创建和探索存在的尺寸，布局和人体工程学的约束，如果成功的话，这项研究的结果将提高当前的设计实践，允许重要的设计标准进行管理和应用的同时与概念形式设计。反过来，这将有助于缓解在当前设计环境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，加强以人为本的设计研究和教育的基础设施，需要很少或根本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，并在他们定期提供的设计课程中提供所产生的软件。最后，拟议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.