A Project Overview

Faculty of Engineering

Prof. Alison McKayProf. David Hogg Prof. Alan de PenningtonDr. Hau Hing ChauDr. Iestyn Jowers 

Department of Design and Innovation

Prof. Christopher Earl Dr. Steven GarnerDr. Miquel Prats

Department of Architecture

Dr. Scott ChaseDr. Sungwoo Lim

Funded by

Designing for the 21st Century Initiative

1. What were our aims and objectives?

2. What progress did we make?

3. Where next?

Presentation Overview

… we anticipate three intertwined cycles

The Shape Synthesis

System generating

shapes

The designer designing shapes

Communication between

thetwo

The Vision

• How do designers, across a range of disciplines, generate shapes?

• What similarities and differences in approach can be observed?

• In shape grammar-based systems, can computer vision techniques be used to resolve the sub-shape detection problem?

• How might the ability to compute shapes enhance the act of designing itself?

Research Questions

1. What were our aims and objectives?

2. What progress did we make?

3. Where next?

Presentation Overview

… we anticipate three intertwined cycles

The Shape Synthesis

System generating

shapes

The designer designing shapes

Communication between

thetwo

The Vision

• How do designers, across a range of disciplines, generate shapes?

• What similarities and differences in approach can be observed?

• In shape grammar-based systems, can computer vision techniques be used to resolve the sub-shape detection problem?

• How might the ability to compute shapes enhance the act of designing itself?

Research Questions

• 8 industrial designers and 6 architects participated

• participants undertook three tasks

Learn about

segmentation

Task 13 minutes each

Task 2

Learn about

(re)interpretation

Industrial designers: Lemon squeezer

Architects: Building

10 minutes

Task 3

Industrial designers: Kettle

Architects: Building

Learn about

design networks

14 minutes

How do designers design shapes?

The actions of the participants were video recorded and their pen strokes were captured using a tablet input device

At the end of the tasks participants were asked

to elaborate on the interpretations and

manipulations of their sketches

How do designers design shapes?

How do designers design shapes?

Interpreted as

a component of the lemon squeezer

Interpreted as

side view

Interpreted as

top view

A majority of participants had more than one interpretation of the initial design during the design process Initial design

Capture shape transformations via shape rules

How do designers design shapes?

How do designers design shapes?

Classification of general shape rules

How do designers design shapes?

Frequency of use of general shape rules

Capture shape transformations in sketches via general shape rules

How do designers design shapes?

… we anticipate three intertwined cycles

The Shape Synthesis

System generating

shapes

The designer designing shapes

The Vision

Different interpretations of a shape:

Formalised and manipulated by shape rules:e.g.

How can computers generate shapes?

…which can generate networks of shapes

A set of shape rules defines a shape grammar…

e.g.

How can computers generate shapes?

Shape grammars can be used to define and explore designs:

Palladian GrammarGenerates villa plans in the

style of Andrea Palladio(Stiny and Mitchell 1978)

Buick GrammarGenerates car front ends in the Buick style (McCormack et al. 2004)

How can computers generate shapes?

Implementation of shape grammars depends on a system that can automatically detect sub-shapes under transformation

Previous approaches to sub-shape detection have relied on analytical methods with limited applicability

How can all perceived sub-shapes be represented in a shape?

How can computers generate shapes?

• How do designers, across a range of disciplines, generate shapes?

• What similarities and differences in approach can be observed?

• In shape grammar-based systems, can computer vision techniques be used to resolve the sub-shape detection problem?

• How might the ability to compute shapes enhance the act of designing itself?

Research Questions

LARGE DISTANCESMALL DISTANCE

• Using techniques from computer vision enables a shape synthesis system to “see” the sub-shapes in a design

• This allows for a more robust approach

• In practice it involves measuring the distance between point sets

How can computers generate shapes?

e.g. is a sub-shape of

NO DISTANCE

SUB-SHAPE

Find this shape…

…replace with this shape

How can computers generate shapes?

A shape synthesis system:

How can computers generate shapes?

Find thisshape…

Design

…replacewith thisshape

How can computers generate shapes?

• How do designers, across a range of disciplines, generate shapes?

• What similarities and differences in approach can be observed?

• In shape grammar-based systems, can computer vision techniques be used to resolve the sub-shape detection problem?

• How might the ability to compute shapes enhance the act of designing itself?

Research Questions

… we anticipate three intertwined cycles

The Shape Synthesis

System generating

shapes

Communication between

thetwo

The Vision

The designer designing shapes

… we anticipate three intertwined cycles

The Vision

Designer sketches

Designed shapes

Systemidentifies shapes

System applies rules

and generates new shapes

System produces

shape networks

Generatedshapes

Designer works from available shapes

Designer identifies shapes

Identify shape rules

1. What were our aims and objectives?

2. What progress did we make?

3. Where next?

Presentation Overview

Visit the project website

www.engineering.leeds.ac.uk/dssg

for • project information• publications list• video demo• software download• contact details

For more information…

• How do designers, across a range of disciplines, generate shapes?

• What similarities and differences in approach can be observed?

• In shape grammar-based systems, can computer vision techniques be used to resolve the sub-shape detection problem?

• How might the ability to compute shapes enhance the act of designing itself?

Summary