Collaborative Research: HCC: Small: End-User Guided Search and Optimization for Accessible Product Customization and Design

廉价的3D打印机、针织机、激光切割机、刺绣机和其他桌面制造设备的广泛使用，有可能推动定制、个性化制造的革命。然而，目前为制造业设计工件需要大量的专业知识和使用先进的计算机辅助设计工具的能力。该项目旨在使用生成式人工智能和引导搜索算法将设计的力量交到最终用户手中。这个项目的框架将使领域专家，甚至最终用户，创建特定领域的设计工具，没有任何编程专业知识。例如，临床医生可能会使用该项目的框架来制作一个工具，用于生成适合手部受伤的特定患者需求的定制手部夹板。研究小组将重点关注无障碍设备的重要领域，这些设备是解决残疾人各种无障碍需求的物理对象，以及相关的健康问题。该项目的工作将以与使用移动设备（坐着和站着）的残疾人社区利益攸关方举办设计讲习班而告终。这个项目的好处包括可能使许多不同能力的人找到定制解决方案的等价物，而无需定制设计的成本。领域专家能够快速创建生成式设计工具，满足最终用户的定制和特定产品需求，这将对可访问性、产品开发和更广泛的消费者经济产生变革。为了将基于优化的搜索交给最终用户，该项目将使没有编程专业知识的领域专家能够使用该项目的新颖框架指定生成式设计的三个关键组件，变形研究小组将在整个工作中强调可解释性。首先，领域专家需要能够描述他们创建的生成式设计工具应该搜索的设计空间。虽然Metamorph是领域不可知的，但该项目的评估将集中在数字制造领域。因此，该项目将支持一系列设计表示，包括计算机辅助设计和使用深度学习工具创建的学习嵌入。研究团队将开发新的方法来可视化设计空间，以支持领域专家的验证。其次，领域专家需要能够从设计空间和任何最终用户输入的角度来描述搜索的度量。作为这项工作的一部分，研究团队将为领域专家开发第一个可参数化优化指标数据库，以及一个界面，让用户选择，参数化和组合它们，或通过示例进行教学。通过将度量规范视为最终用户编程问题，研究团队可以将新技术应用于度量规范，例如学习和组合，并将强调将结果呈现给领域专家的可解释性。最后，该项目将支持领域专家和最终用户选择适当的优化算法，验证和验证Metamorph产生的特定于领域的设计工具。这项任务将首先涉及使用定性方法来了解优化空间中可解释性的最佳方法，然后通过迭代设计来实施和测试这项工作所告知的方法。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估来支持。

The widespread availability of inexpensive 3D printers, knitting machines, laser cutters, embroidery machines, and other desktop manufacturing devices has the potential to drive a revolution in the creation of bespoke, person-specific manufacturing. However, designing artifacts for manufacturing currently requires a great deal of expertise and the ability to use advanced computer aided design tools. This project seeks to put the power of design in the hands of end users using generative artificial intelligence and guided search algorithms. This project's framework will enable domain experts, and even end users, to create domain-specific design tools without any programming expertise. For example, a clinician might use the project's framework to make a tool for generating custom hand-splints that fit the needs of specific patients with hand injuries. The research team will focus on the important domain of accessibility devices, physical objects that address the varied accessibility needs for people with disabilities and related health concerns. The project's work will culminate with a design workshop with stakeholders from the disability community who use mobility devices (seated and standing). The benefits of this project include potentially enabling many people of different abilities to find the equivalent of bespoke solutions without the costs of custom design. The ability for domain experts to rapidly create generative design tools that address custom and specific product needs for end users would be transformative for accessibility, product development, and the consumer economy more broadly.To put optimization-based search in the hands of end users, the project will enable domain experts without programming expertise to specify three critical components of generative design using the project's novel framework, Metamorph. The research team will emphasize interpretability throughout the work. First, domain experts need to be able to describe the design space over which the generative design tool they are creating should search. While Metamorph is domain agnostic, the project's evaluations will focus on digital fabrication domains. Thus, the project will support a range of design representations including computer aided design and learned embeddings created using deep learning tools. The research team will develop novel approaches for visualizing the design space to support verification by domain experts. Second, domain experts need to be able to describe the metrics of the search in terms of both the design space and any end user input. As part of this effort, the research team will develop the first database of parameterizable optimization metrics for domain experts, and an interface for letting the user select, parameterize, and compose them, or teach by example. By treating metric specification as an end-user programming problem, the research team can apply new techniques to metric specification, such as learning and composition, and will emphasize interpretability in presenting the results back to domain experts. Finally, the project will support domain experts and end users in selecting appropriate optimization algorithms validating and verifying the resulting domain-specific design tool that Metamorph produces. This task will involve first using qualitative methods to understand the best approaches to interpretability in the optimization space, followed by iterative design to implement and test approaches informed by this work.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.