EAGER: Exploring Volumetric Modeling and Design Theory for Virtual Environments

工程设计的本质是快速、有效和创造性地向最优解转变，这可以通过对跨越多个维度的众多设计参数的迭代修改来实现。为了改善整个计算机辅助工程流程，并通过IT支持的工具提高工程师的创造力，这个小规模、CreativeIT项目的长期雄心勃勃的目标是开发一个增强创造力的虚拟原型环境，该环境可以通过基于物理的真实世界对象建模和力觉雕塑来极大地促进人机交互。PI的战略旨在开发一个支持触觉的平台，用于实体建模、设计、分析和相关应用，其中包括一套用于表示多维数据集的新的体积模型，以及用于操作和管理此类表示的基于触觉的物理交互。智力优势：PI计划采取一种独特的集成方法，旨在在单个IT系统中整合跨越体积、物理和材料建模的不同研究主题，以实现新颖的数据表示；用于交互和分析的基于几何和物理的算法；以及用于各种应用的软件工具。通过一系列理论驱动的研究活动，从长远来看，这一倡议的更广泛影响将是基础和深远的，对于在更广泛的实际应用中增强IT工具，以及通过触觉交互扩大人类对计算机的可访问性。这一倡议承诺提供一种新的方法来表示、操作和交互在诸如数字工程、用于合成/分析的虚拟雕刻、外科培训等下游应用中常用的体积数据集。

The essence of engineering design is rapid, effective, and creative change towards optimal solutions, which can be accomplished through the iterative modification of numerous design parameters spanning across multi-dimensions. To ameliorate the entire computer-aided engineering processes and enhance engineers' creativity through IT-supported tools, the long-term ambitious goal of this small-scale, CreativeIT project is to develop a creativity-enhancing virtual prototype environment that can greatly facilitate human-computer interaction through physics-based modeling of real-world objects and force-enabled haptic sculpting. The PI's strategy aims to develop a haptics-enabled platform for solid modeling, design, analysis, and relevant applications, which includes a suite of new, volumetric models for representing multi-dimensional datasets as well as haptics-based physical interactions for manipulating and managing such representations.Intellectual Merits: The PI plans to take a unique and integrated approach that aims to incorporate within a single IT system disparate research thrusts that span volumetric, physical, and material modeling for novel data representation; geometric and physics-based algorithms for interaction and analysis; and software tools for various applications. Through a suite of theory-driven research activities, the Broader Impact of this initiative in the long run will be both fundamental and profound to the enhancement of IT tools in a wider spectrum of real applications as well as the broadening of computer accessibility by human beings via haptic interaction. This initiative promises to deliver a new approach for representing, manipulating, and interacting with volumetric datasets in common use in such downstream applications as digital engineering, virtual sculpting for synthesis/analysis, surgical training, and many more.