Cumincad : CUMINCAD Papers : Search Results

CumInCAD is a Cumulative Index about publications in Computer Aided Architectural Design
supported by the sibling associations ACADIA, CAADRIA, eCAADe, SIGraDi, ASCAAD and CAAD futures

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_id	2354
authors	Clayden, A. and Szalapaj, P.
year	1997
title	Architecture in Landscape: Integrated CAD Environments for Contextually Situated Design
source	Challenges of the Future [15th eCAADe Conference Proceedings / ISBN 0-9523687-3-0] Vienna (Austria) 17-20 September 1997
doi	https://doi.org/10.52842/conf.ecaade.1997.x.q6p
summary	This paper explores the future role of a more holistic and integrated approach to the design of architecture in landscape. Many of the design exploration and presentation techniques presently used by particular design professions do not lend themselves to an inherently collaborative design strategy. Within contemporary digital environments, there are increasing opportunities to explore and evaluate design proposals which integrate both architectural and landscape aspects. The production of integrated design solutions exploring buildings and their surrounding context is now possible through the design development of shared 3-D and 4-D virtual environments, in which buildings no longer float in space. The scope of landscape design has expanded through the application of techniques such as GIS allowing interpretations that include social, economic and environmental dimensions. In architecture, for example, object-oriented CAD environments now make it feasible to integrate conventional modelling techniques with analytical evaluations such as energy calculations and lighting simulations. These were all ambitions of architects and landscape designers in the 70s when computer power restricted the successful implementation of these ideas. Instead, the commercial trend at that time moved towards isolated specialist design tools in particular areas. Prior to recent innovations in computing, the closely related disciplines of architecture and landscape have been separated through the unnecessary development, in our view, of their own symbolic representations, and the subsequent computer applications. This has led to an unnatural separation between what were once closely related disciplines. Significant increases in the performance of computers are now making it possible to move on from symbolic representations towards more contextual and meaningful representations. For example, the application of realistic materials textures to CAD-generated building models can then be linked to energy calculations using the chosen materials. It is now possible for a tree to look like a tree, to have leaves and even to be botanicaly identifiable. The building and landscape can be rendered from a common database of digital samples taken from the real world. The complete model may be viewed in a more meaningful way either through stills or animation, or better still, through a total simulation of the lifecycle of the design proposal. The model may also be used to explore environmental/energy considerations and changes in the balance between the building and its context most immediately through the growth simulation of vegetation but also as part of a larger planning model. The Internet has a key role to play in facilitating this emerging collaborative design process. Design professionals are now able via the net to work on a shared model and to explore and test designs through the development of VRML, JAVA, whiteboarding and video conferencing. The end product may potentially be something that can be more easily viewed by the client/user. The ideas presented in this paper form the basis for the development of a dual course in landscape and architecture. This will create new teaching opportunities for exploring the design of buildings and sites through the shared development of a common computer model.
keywords	Integrated Design Process, Landscape and Architecture, Shared Environmentsenvironments
series	eCAADe
email
more	http://info.tuwien.ac.at/ecaade/proc/szalapaj/szalapaj.htm
last changed	2022/06/07 07:50

_id	91ea
authors	Liu, J.
year	1997
title	Quality prediction for concrete manufacturing
source	Automation in Construction 5 (6) (1997) pp. 491-499
summary	The problem of extracting information from several sources of information is a very important issue in intelligent systems. In the field of manufacturing concrete--one of the most common construction materials--in Hong Kong, this problem is quite common. There is no direct formulation of concrete mix for specified properties, and all of the mixes are designed by experience and subject to quality inconsistency due to many possible mixing variations. This paper describes an application of neural network techniques to the acquisition of qualitative knowledge during the production of concrete. It shows the capabilities of the developed model for the analysis and representation of production data and prediction of the quality of concrete under different mixing formulations. The simulation results indicate that the neural network's prediction is generally superior to those of conventional methods which often require time-consuming trial mixes for verifying the specified properties before mass production for use.
series	journal paper
more	http://www.elsevier.com/locate/autcon
last changed	2003/05/15 21:22

_id	8804
authors	QaQish, R. and Hanna, R.
year	1997
title	A World-wide Questionnaire Survey on the Use of Computers in Architectural Education
source	Challenges of the Future [15th eCAADe Conference Proceedings / ISBN 0-9523687-3-0] Vienna (Austria) 17-20 September 1997
doi	https://doi.org/10.52842/conf.ecaade.1997.x.c8o
summary	The paper reports on a study which examines the impact on architectural education needs arising from the changes brought about by the implications of CAD teaching/learning (CAI/CAL). The findings reflect the views of fifty-one (51) architecture schools through a world-wide questionnaire survey conducted in mid 1996. The survey was structured to cover four continents represented by seven countries, namely the USA, UK, Israel, Australia, Canada, Sweden and the Netherlands. Structurally the main findings of this study are summarised under five areas, namely: 1) General Information, 2) Program of Study (curriculum) and CAD course, 3) CAD Laboratories: Hardware, Software, 4) Departmental Current and Future Policies, 5) Multi-media and Virtual Reality. Principally, there were three main objectives for using the computers survey. Firstly, to accommodate a prevalent comprehension of CAD integration into the curriculum of architecture schools world wide. Secondly, to identify the main key factors that control the extent of association between CAD and architectural curriculum. Thirdly, to identify common trends of CAD teaching in Architecture schools world-wide and across the seven countries to establish whether there are any association between them. Several variables and factors that were found to have an impact on AE were examined, namely: the response rate, the conventional methods users and the CAD methods users amongst students, CAD course employment in the curriculum, age of CAD employment, the role of CAD in the curriculum, CAD training time in the Curriculum, CAD laboratories/Hardware & Software, computing staff and technicians, department policies, Multi-Media (MM) and Virtual-Reality (VR). The statistical analysis of the study revealed significant findings, one of which indicates that 35% of the total population of students at the surveyed architecture schools are reported as being CAD users. Out of the 51 architecture schools who participated in this survey, 47 have introduced CAD courses into the curriculum. The impact of CAD on the curriculum was noted to be significant in several areas, namely: architectural design, architectural presentation, structural engineering, facilities management, thesis project and urban design. The top five CAD packages found to be most highly used across universities were, namely, AutoCAD (46), 3DStudio (34), Microstation (23), Form Z (17), ArchiCAD (17). The findings of this study suggest some effective and efficient future directions in adopting some form of effective CAD strategies in the curriculum of architecture. The study also serves as an evaluation tool for computing teaching in the design studio and the curriculum.
keywords	CAD Integration, Employment, Users and Effectiveness
series	eCAADe
email
more	http://info.tuwien.ac.at/ecaade/proc/qaqish/qaqish.htm
last changed	2022/06/07 07:50

_id	7b96
authors	Schley, M., Buday, R., Sanders, K. and Smith, D. (eds.)
year	1997
title	AIA CAD layer guidelines
source	Washington, DC: The American Institute of Architects Press
summary	The power and potential of computer-aided design (CAD) is based on the ability to reuse and share information. This is particularly true in building design and construction, a field that involves extensive information and teamwork between a variety of consultants. CAD provides both a common medium of exchange and a tool for producing the documentation required for construction and management. The key to realizing the potential of CAD is using common organizing principles. In particular, standard organization of files and layers is essential for efficient work and communication. Virtually all CAD systems support the concept of layers. This function allows graphic information to be grouped for display or plotting purposes. Intelligent use of layers can reduce drawing time and improve drawing coordination. By turning selected layers on or off, a variety of different plotted sheets can be produced. The layer is the basic CAD tool for managing visual information. By making it possible to reuse information, layers reduce drawing time and improve coordination. Layers and the new class libraries and object data complement, rather than compete with each other. Using layers to manage the visual aspects of graphic entities, with class libraries and object data to store the non-graphic data, gives architects an efficient way to work in CAD.
series	other
last changed	2003/04/23 15:14

_id	2d60
authors	Schwenck, M. and Sariyildiz, S.
year	1997
title	An Integrated Software Environment for the Architectural Design Process
source	Proceedings of the International Conference on Applications of Computer Science and Mathematics in Architecture and Building Science (IKM 1997), Weimar, Germany
summary	Many software systems are in common use in the field of architectural design. On the other hand, we consider a complete automation of architectural design as an unlikely proposition and undesirable for the architect. Therefore, the general objective is to support the designer during the whole process of architectural design in order to increase the efficiency and to improve the quality of the results. So far there are different tools providing such functionality. Nevertheless, there are no appropriate tools for many of the sub-processes. Furthermore, the current state of available design software is characterised by a lack of integration of different tools. In this paper we will provide a survey on a project dealing with the solution of both problems. First we will give a general description of the support that software can provide to architects during the design process. We conclude that many different tools are needed which have to be integrated in an open, modular, distributed, user friendly and efficient environment. We will explain the necessity of integration and cover integration technologies. Besides the aspect of integration we also deal with the development of tools which can operate in the integrated design environment. We suggest a strategy where the tool functions are specified on the basis of a transformation from hierarchical process descriptions of architectural design into a hierarchy of tool descriptions.
series	other
last changed	2003/04/23 15:50

_id	0205
authors	Watanabe, Shun and Komatsu, Kiichiro
year	1997
title	The Distributed Architectural Model for Co-Operative Design
source	CAAD Futures 1997 [Conference Proceedings / ISBN 0-7923-4726-9] München (Germany), 4-6 August 1997, pp. 565-570
summary	Collaborative design has become one of the most significant topics in the field of design science and computing. Many studies have been made on proposing methods of collaborative design computing from various points of view. In this paper, the latest technological approach in the field of computer science is taken to illustrate future design systems. The distributed architectural model is proposed to support collaborative and concurrent design. I will begin by discussing existing methods for design collaboration, and I will also mention the CORBA (Common Object Request Broker Architecture) specifications for the framework of the distributed computing environment. The semantic/presentation split basis is introduced as the essential for developing distributed applications, and the strategy for adapting AKM (Architectural Knowledge-representation Model) to this basis will also be considered. Then I will introduce the sample implementation of our distributed architectural model in the Distributed Smalltalk environment, and also explain IDL (Interface Definition Language) interface of architectural objects.
keywords	Architectural Model, Collaborative Design, Distributed Computing
series	CAAD Futures
email
last changed	1999/04/06 09:19

_id	641c
authors	Howe, A. Scott
year	1997
title	A Network-based Kit-of-parts Virtual Building System
source	CAAD Futures 1997 [Conference Proceedings / ISBN 0-7923-4726-9] München (Germany), 4-6 August 1997, pp. 691-706
summary	This paper describes an experimental browser / modeler which will allow the user to collect and assemble virtual kit-of-parts components from "component libraries" located on the Internet (such as manufacturer's databases) and assemble them into a virtual representation of a building. The fully assembled virtual building will provide a basis for ordering and manufacturing actual components and preparing for construction. The browser will allow the designer to affect a limited degree of remote fabrication at real manufacturing facilities, and facilitate eventual interface with built in sensors and actuators. The browser will manipulate and display interactive three dimensional objects using Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML). Upon assembly, actual components will have sensors built into them for providing data about the real building, which could be viewed during a walkthrough of the virtual building by clicking on parts of the model. The virtual building will work as a remote facility management tool for monitoring or controlling various architectural devices attached to the real building (such as electrically driven louvers, HVAC systems, appliances, etc.).
series	CAAD Futures
email
last changed	1999/04/06 09:19

_id	sigradi2006_e131c
id	sigradi2006_e131c
authors	Ataman, Osman
year	2006
title	Toward New Wall Systems: Lighter, Stronger, Versatile
source	SIGraDi 2006 - [Proceedings of the 10th Iberoamerican Congress of Digital Graphics] Santiago de Chile - Chile 21-23 November 2006, pp. 248-253
summary	Recent developments in digital technologies and smart materials have created new opportunities and are suggesting significant changes in the way we design and build architecture. Traditionally, however, there has always been a gap between the new technologies and their applications into other areas. Even though, most technological innovations hold the promise to transform the building industry and the architecture within, and although, there have been some limited attempts in this area recently; to date architecture has failed to utilize the vast amount of accumulated technological knowledge and innovations to significantly transform the industry. Consequently, the applications of new technologies to architecture remain remote and inadequate. One of the main reasons of this problem is economical. Architecture is still seen and operated as a sub-service to the Construction industry and it does not seem to be feasible to apply recent innovations in Building Technology area. Another reason lies at the heart of architectural education. Architectural education does not follow technological innovations (Watson 1997), and that “design and technology issues are trivialized by their segregation from one another” (Fernandez 2004). The final reason is practicality and this one is partially related to the previous reasons. The history of architecture is full of visions for revolutionizing building technology, ideas that failed to achieve commercial practicality. Although, there have been some adaptations in this area recently, the improvements in architecture reflect only incremental progress, not the significant discoveries needed to transform the industry. However, architectural innovations and movements have often been generated by the advances of building materials, such as the impact of steel in the last and reinforced concrete in this century. There have been some scattered attempts of the creation of new materials and systems but currently they are mainly used for limited remote applications and mostly for aesthetic purposes. We believe a new architectural material class is needed which will merge digital and material technologies, embedded in architectural spaces and play a significant role in the way we use and experience architecture. As a principle element of architecture, technology has allowed for the wall to become an increasingly dynamic component of the built environment. The traditional connotations and objectives related to the wall are being redefined: static becomes fluid, opaque becomes transparent, barrier becomes filter and boundary becomes borderless. Combining smart materials, intelligent systems, engineering, and art can create a component that does not just support and define but significantly enhances the architectural space. This paper presents an ongoing research project about the development of new class of architectural wall system by incorporating distributed sensors and macroelectronics directly into the building environment. This type of composite, which is a representative example of an even broader class of smart architectural material, has the potential to change the design and function of an architectural structure or living environment. As of today, this kind of composite does not exist. Once completed, this will be the first technology on its own. We believe this study will lay the fundamental groundwork for a new paradigm in surface engineering that may be of considerable significance in architecture, building and construction industry, and materials science.
keywords	Digital; Material; Wall; Electronics
series	SIGRADI
email
last changed	2016/03/10 09:47

_id	b4c4
authors	Carrara, G., Fioravanti, A. and Novembri, G.
year	2000
title	A framework for an Architectural Collaborative Design
source	Promise and Reality: State of the Art versus State of Practice in Computing for the Design and Planning Process [18th eCAADe Conference Proceedings / ISBN 0-9523687-6-5] Weimar (Germany) 22-24 June 2000, pp. 57-60
doi	https://doi.org/10.52842/conf.ecaade.2000.057
summary	The building industry involves a larger number of disciplines, operators and professionals than other industrial processes. Its peculiarity is that the products (building objects) have a number of parts (building elements) that does not differ much from the number of classes into which building objects can be conceptually subdivided. Another important characteristic is that the building industry produces unique products (de Vries and van Zutphen, 1992). This is not an isolated situation but indeed one that is spreading also in other industrial fields. For example, production niches have proved successful in the automotive and computer industries (Carrara, Fioravanti, & Novembri, 1989). Building design is a complex multi-disciplinary process, which demands a high degree of co-ordination and co-operation among separate teams, each having its own specific knowledge and its own set of specific design tools. Establishing an environment for design tool integration is a prerequisite for network-based distributed work. It was attempted to solve the problem of efficient, user-friendly, and fast information exchange among operators by treating it simply as an exchange of data. But the failure of IGES, CGM, PHIGS confirms that data have different meanings and importance in different contexts. The STandard for Exchange of Product data, ISO 10303 Part 106 BCCM, relating to AEC field (Wix, 1997), seems to be too complex to be applied to professional studios. Moreover its structure is too deep and the conceptual classifications based on it do not allow multi-inheritance (Ekholm, 1996). From now on we shall adopt the BCCM semantic that defines the actor as "a functional participant in building construction"; and we shall define designer as "every member of the class formed by designers" (architects, engineers, town-planners, construction managers, etc.).
keywords	Architectural Design Process, Collaborative Design, Knowledge Engineering, Dynamic Object Oriented Programming
series	eCAADe
email
more	http://www.uni-weimar.de/ecaade/
last changed	2022/06/07 07:55

_id	d869
authors	Chu, C.-C., Dani, T.H. and Gadh, R.
year	1997
title	Multi-sensory user interface for a virtual-reality-based computer-aided design system
source	Computer-Aided Design, Vol. 29 (10) (1997) pp. 709-725
summary	The generation of geometric shapes called `geometric concept designs' via the multi-sensory user interface of a virtual reality (VR) based system motivates the currentresearch. In this new VR-based system, geometric designs can be more effectively inputted into the computer in a physically intuitive way. The interaction mechanism issimilar to the way in which industrial designers sit and discuss concept design shapes across a table from each other, prior to making a final decision about the productdetails. By using different sensory modalities, such as voice, hand motions and gestures, product designers can convey design ideas through the VR-basedcomputer-aided design (CAD) system. In this scenario, the multi-sensory interface between human and computer plays a central role with respect to usability, usefulnessand accuracy. The current paper focuses on determining the requirements for the multi-sensory user interface and assessing the applications of different input and outputmechanisms in the virtual environment (VE). In order to evaluate this multi-sensory user interface, this paper formulates the typical activities in product shape design intoa set of requirements for the VR-CAD system. On the basis of these requirements, we interviewed typical CAD users about the effectiveness of using different sensoryinput and output interaction mechanisms such as visual, auditory and tactile. According to the results of these investigations, a nodal network of design activity thatdefines the multi-sensory user interface of the VR-CAD system is determined in the current research. The VR-CAD system is still being developed. However, voicecommand input, hand motion input, three-dimensional visual output and auditory output have been successfully integrated into the current system. Moreover, severalmechanical parts have been successfully created through the VR interface. Once designers use the VR-CAD system that we are currently developing, the interfacerequirements determined in the current paper may be verified or refined. The objectives of the current research are to expand the frontiers of product design and establisha new paradigm for the VR-based conceptual shape design system.
keywords	Virtual Reality, Multi-Sensory User Interface, Conceptual Shape Design, Sensory Interaction Mechanism
series	journal paper
last changed	2003/05/15 21:33

_id	e82f
authors	Howe, A Scott
year	1997
title	Designing for Automated Construction
source	CAADRIA ‘97 [Proceedings of the Second Conference on Computer Aided Architectural Design Research in Asia / ISBN 957-575-057-8] Taiwan 17-19 April 1997, pp. 83-92
doi	https://doi.org/10.52842/conf.caadria.1997.083
summary	The majority of automated construction research and development has been bottom-up, from the construction/engineering side rather than top-down from the design end. In order to optimize the use of automated technology, it is important that design principles based on the technology are considered. This paper seeks to address topics related to designing robotic systems for construction, and developing overall design principles for top-down architect/design applications. The research herein is divided into a theoretical research programme for the purpose of deriving a simple shape grammar and a simulation research programme for understanding component connections and robotic manipulation. The second part of this paper introduces a concept automated construction system designed according to the principles derived from the investigation.
series	CAADRIA
last changed	2022/06/07 07:50

_id	2c17
authors	Junge, Richard and Liebich, Thomas
year	1997
title	Product Data Model for Interoperability in an Distributed Environment
source	CAAD Futures 1997 [Conference Proceedings / ISBN 0-7923-4726-9] München (Germany), 4-6 August 1997, pp. 571-589
summary	This paper belongs to a suite of three interrelated papers. The two others are 'The VEGA Platform' and 'A Dynamic Product Model'. These two companion papers are also based on the VEGA project. The ESPRIT project VEGA (Virtual Enterprises using Groupware tools and distributed Architectures) has the objective to develop IT solutions enabling virtual enterprises, especially in the domain of architectural design and building engineering. VEGA shall give answers to many questions of what is needed for enabling such virtual enterprise from the IT side. The questions range from technologies for networks, communication between distributed applications, control, management of information flow to implementation and model architectures to allow distribution of information in the virtual enterprises. This paper is focused on the product model aspect of VEGA. So far modeling experts have followed a more or less centralized architecture (central or central with 4 satellites'). Is this also the architecture for the envisaged goal? What is the architecture for such a distributed model following the paradigm of modeling the , natural human' way of doing business? What is the architecture enabling most effective the filtering and translation in the communication process. Today there is some experience with 'bulk data' of the document exchange type. What is with incremental information (not data) exchange? Incremental on demand only the really needed information not a whole document. The paper is structured into three parts. First there is description of the modeling history or background. the second a vision of interoperability in an distributed environment from the users coming from architectural design and building engineering view point. Third is a description of work undertaken by the authors in previous project forming the direct basis for the VEGA model. Finally a short description of the VEGA project, especially the VEGA model architecture.
series	CAAD Futures
email
last changed	1999/04/06 09:19

_id	e835
authors	Kaga, A. and Sasada, T. (et al).
year	1997
title	City information Visualizer Using 3-D model and Computer Graphics
source	Proceedings of the 20th Symposium on Computer Technology of Information, Systems and Applications (AIJ), pp. 205-210
summary	3-D models and computer graphics with its visual characteristics enables easier understanding of various information. Up until now 3-D models and computer graphics has not been used for the analysis of city information due to its high cost and the need for special techniques. Currently, we have discovered new technology in hyper medium based on network technology and lower costs. This paper focuses on the construction of an interactive and visual 3-D city information system, aiming at the 'idea processor' for research and analysis of city planning and market research. We have discovered the requirements necessary for the City Information Visualizer system. Using this technology we will construct the prototype system of the 3-D City Information Visualizer. This system is based on the personal computer and the Client/Server system. The system is then applied to practical city analysis. This paper presents the prototype system and its evaluation in a real project.
series	other
last changed	2003/04/23 15:50

_id	diss_marsh
id	diss_marsh
authors	Marsh, A.J.
year	1997
title	Performance Analysis and Conceptual Design
source	School of Architecture and Fine Arts, University of Western Australia
summary	A significant amount of the research referred to by Manning has been directed into the development of computer software for building simulation and performance analysis. A wide range of computational tools are now available and see relatively widespread use in both research and commercial applications. The focus of development in this area has long been on the accurate simulation of fundamental physical processes, such as the mechanisms of heat flow though materials, turbulent air movement and the inter-reflection of light. The adequate description of boundary conditions for such calculations usually requires a very detailed mathematical model. This has tended to produce tools with a very engineering-oriented and solution-based approach. Whilst becoming increasingly popular amongst building services engineers, there has been a relatively slow response to this technology amongst architects. There are some areas of the world, particularly the UK and Germany, where the use of such tools on larger projects is routine. However, this is almost exclusively during the latter stages of a project and usually for purposes of plant sizing or final design validation. The original conceptual work, building form and the selection of materials being the result of an aesthetic and intuitive process, sometimes based solely on precedent. There is no argument that an experienced designer is capable of producing an excellent design in this way. However, not all building designers are experienced, and even fewer have a complete understanding of the fundamental physical processes involved in building performance. These processes can be complex and often highly inter-related, often even counter-intuitive. It is the central argument of this thesis that the needs of the building designer are quite different from the needs of the building services engineer, and that existing building design and performance analysis tools poorly serve these needs. It will be argued that the extensive quantitative input requirement in such tools acts to produce a psychological separation between the act of design and the act of analysis. At the conceptual stage, building geometry is fluid and subject to constant change, with solid quantitative information relatively scarce. Having to measure off surface areas or search out the emissivity of a particular material forces the designer to think mathematically at a time when they are thinking intuitively. It is, however, at this intuitive stage that the greatest potential exists for performance efficiencies and environmental economies. The right orientation and fenestration choice can halve the airconditioning requirement. Incorporating passive solar elements and natural ventilation pathways can eliminate it altogether. The building form can even be designed to provide shading using its own fabric, without any need for additional structure or applied shading. It is significantly more difficult and costly to retrofit these features at a later stage in a project’s development. If the role of the design tool is to serve the design process, then a new approach is required to accommodate the conceptual phase. This thesis presents a number of ideas on what that approach may be, accompanied by some example software that demonstrates their implementation.
series	thesis:PhD
more	http://www.squ1.com/site.html
last changed	2003/11/28 07:33

_id	cf2011_p016
id	cf2011_p016
authors	Merrick, Kathryn; Gu Ning
year	2011
title	Supporting Collective Intelligence for Design in Virtual Worlds: A Case Study of the Lego Universe
source	Computer Aided Architectural Design Futures 2011 [Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Computer Aided Architectural Design Futures / ISBN 9782874561429] Liege (Belgium) 4-8 July 2011, pp. 637-652.
summary	Virtual worlds are multi-faceted technologies. Facets of virtual worlds include graphical simulation tools, communication, design and modelling tools, artificial intelligence, network structure, persistent object-oriented infrastructure, economy, governance and user presence and interaction. Recent studies (Merrick et al., 2010) and applications (Rosenman et al., 2006; Maher et al., 2006) have shown that the combination of design, modelling and communication tools, and artificial intelligence in virtual worlds makes them suitable platforms for supporting collaborative design, including human-human collaboration and human-computer co-creativity. Virtual worlds are also coming to be recognised as a platform for collective intelligence (Levy, 1997), a form of group intelligence that emerges from collaboration and competition among large numbers of individuals. Because of the close relationship between design, communication and virtual world technologies, there appears a strong possibility of using virtual worlds to harness collective intelligence for supporting upcoming ‚Äúdesign challenges on a much larger scale as we become an increasingly global and technological society‚Äù (Maher et al, 2010), beyond the current support for small-scale collaborative design teams. Collaborative design is relatively well studied and is characterised by small-scale, carefully structured design teams, usually comprising design professionals with a good understanding of the design task at hand. All team members are generally motivated and have the skills required to structure the shared solution space and to complete the design task. In contrast, collective design (Maher et al, 2010) is characterised by a very large number of participants ranging from professional designers to design novices, who may need to be motivated to participate, whose contributions may not be directly utilised for design purposes, and who may need to learn some or all of the skills required to complete the task. Thus the facets of virtual worlds required to support collective design differ from those required to support collaborative design. Specifically, in addition to design, communication and artificial intelligence tools, various interpretive, mapping and educational tools together with appropriate motivational and reward systems may be required to inform, teach and motivate virtual world users to contribute and direct their inputs to desired design purposes. Many of these world facets are well understood by computer game developers, as level systems, quests or plot and achievement/reward systems. This suggests the possibility of drawing on or adapting computer gaming technologies as a basis for harnessing collective intelligence in design. Existing virtual worlds that permit open-ended design ‚Äì such as Second Life and There ‚Äì are not specifically game worlds as they do not have extensive level, quest and reward systems in the same way as game worlds like World of Warcraft or Ultima Online. As such, while Second Life and There demonstrate emergent design, they do not have the game-specific facets that focus users towards solving specific problems required for harnessing collective intelligence. However, a new massively multiplayer virtual world is soon to be released that combines open-ended design tools with levels, quests and achievement systems. This world is called Lego Universe (www.legouniverse.com). This paper presents technology spaces for the facets of virtual worlds that can contribute to the support of collective intelligence in design, including design and modelling tools, communication tools, artificial intelligence, level system, motivation, governance and other related facets. We discuss how these facets support the design, communication, motivational and educational requirements of collective intelligence applications. The paper concludes with a case study of Lego Universe, with reference to the technology spaces defined above. We evaluate the potential of this or similar tools to move design beyond the individual and small-scale design teams to harness large-scale collective intelligence. We also consider the types of design tasks that might best be addressed in this manner.
keywords	collective intelligence, collective design, virtual worlds, computer games
series	CAAD Futures
email
last changed	2012/02/11 19:21

_id	b357
authors	Molinari, Claudio and Talamo, Cinzia
year	1997
title	A Hypertextual Didactic Tool for a Maintenance Oriented Design
source	AVOCAAD First International Conference [AVOCAAD Conference Proceedings / ISBN 90-76101-01-09] Brussels (Belgium) 10-12 April 1997, pp. 263-275
summary	This paper presents a research concerning the theme of the support didactic tools for a maintenance oriented design. The work takes a starting point in two remarks: the first is the importance of maintainability requirements prevision for the correct planning of a project and for the formulation of maintenance strategies; the second is the lack of information (examples, references, laws, quality and performance plans) easily available for students and designers. The tool thas has been pointed out has the aim to provide the information - belonging to different categories of knowledge - useful for a maintainability conscious design, according the free navigation modalities tipical of hypertextual applications. Starting from a matrix that associates building subsistems and maintainability requirements the student has the possibility to navigate into a network in which it is possible to have information about: european laws concerning maintenance, examples (drawings, pictures and description) of architectures and of industrial components that regard particular maintainability solutions and a plan in which are schematized the appropriate dimensions and the morfological configurations for the maintenance activities. This hypertextual didactic tool has two different educational applications: 1) during design training courses, it can support in self-training about maintenance aspects; 2) it can become a specialistic module inside an integrated CAAD system developed to combine the graphic representation with different performances evalutions.
series	AVOCAAD
last changed	2005/09/09 10:48

_id	cf2011_p093
id	cf2011_p093
authors	Nguyen, Thi Lan Truc; Tan Beng Kiang
year	2011
title	Understanding Shared Space for Informal Interaction among Geographically Distributed Teams
source	Computer Aided Architectural Design Futures 2011 [Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Computer Aided Architectural Design Futures / ISBN 9782874561429] Liege (Belgium) 4-8 July 2011, pp. 41-54.
summary	In a design project, much creative work is done in teams, thus requires spaces for collaborative works such as conference rooms, project rooms and chill-out areas. These spaces are designed to provide an atmosphere conducive to discussion and communication ranging from formal meetings to informal communication. According to Kraut et al (E.Kraut et al., 1990), informal communication is an important factor for the success of collaboration and is defined as ‚Äúconversations take place at the time, with the participants, and about the topics at hand. It often occurs spontaneously by chance and in face-to-face manner. As shown in many research, much of good and creative ideas originate from impromptu meeting rather than in a formal meeting (Grajewski, 1993, A.Isaacs et al., 1997). Therefore, the places for informal communication are taken into account in workplace design and scattered throughout the building in order to stimulate face-to-face interaction, especially serendipitous communication among different groups across disciplines such as engineering, technology, design and so forth. Nowadays, team members of a project are not confined to people working in one location but are spread widely with geographically distributed collaborations. Being separated by long physical distance, informal interaction by chance is impossible since people are not co-located. In order to maintain the benefit of informal interaction in collaborative works, research endeavor has developed a variety ways to shorten the physical distance and bring people together in one shared space. Technologies to support informal interaction at a distance include video-based technologies, virtual reality technologies, location-based technologies and ubiquitous technologies. These technologies facilitate people to stay aware of other‚Äôs availability in distributed environment and to socialize and interact in a multi-users virtual environment. Each type of applications supports informal interaction through the employed technology characteristics. One of the conditions for promoting frequent and impromptu face-to-face communication is being co-located in one space in which the spatial settings play as catalyst to increase the likelihood for frequent encounter. Therefore, this paper analyses the degree to which sense of shared space is supported by these technical approaches. This analysis helps to identify the trade-off features of each shared space technology and its current problems. A taxonomy of shared space is introduced based on three types of shared space technologies for supporting informal interaction. These types are named as shared physical environments, collaborative virtual environments and mixed reality environments and are ordered increasingly towards the reality of sense of shared space. Based on the problem learnt from other technical approaches and the nature of informal interaction, this paper proposes physical-virtual shared space for supporting intended and opportunistic informal interaction. The shared space will be created by augmenting a 3D collaborative virtual environment (CVE) with real world scene at the virtual world side; and blending the CVE scene to the physical settings at the real world side. Given this, the two spaces are merged into one global structure. With augmented view of the real world, geographically distributed co-workers who populate the 3D CVE are facilitated to encounter and interact with their real world counterparts in a meaningful and natural manner.
keywords	shared space, collaborative virtual environment, informal interaction, intended interaction, opportunistic interaction
series	CAAD Futures
email
last changed	2012/02/11 19:21

_id	ga0026
id	ga0026
authors	Ransen, Owen F.
year	2000
title	Possible Futures in Computer Art Generation
source	International Conference on Generative Art
summary	Years of trying to create an "Image Idea Generator" program have convinced me that the perfect solution would be to have an artificial artistic person, a design slave. This paper describes how I came to that conclusion, realistic alternatives, and briefly, how it could possibly happen. 1. The history of Repligator and Gliftic 1.1 Repligator In 1996 I had the idea of creating an “image idea generator”. I wanted something which would create images out of nothing, but guided by the user. The biggest conceptual problem I had was “out of nothing”. What does that mean? So I put aside that problem and forced the user to give the program a starting image. This program eventually turned into Repligator, commercially described as an “easy to use graphical effects program”, but actually, to my mind, an Image Idea Generator. The first release came out in October 1997. In December 1998 I described Repligator V4 [1] and how I thought it could be developed away from simply being an effects program. In July 1999 Repligator V4 won the Shareware Industry Awards Foundation prize for "Best Graphics Program of 1999". Prize winners are never told why they won, but I am sure that it was because of two things: 1) Easy of use 2) Ease of experimentation "Ease of experimentation" means that Repligator does in fact come up with new graphics ideas. Once you have input your original image you can generate new versions of that image simply by pushing a single key. Repligator is currently at version 6, but, apart from adding many new effects and a few new features, is basically the same program as version 4. Following on from the ideas in [1] I started to develop Gliftic, which is closer to my original thoughts of an image idea generator which "starts from nothing". The Gliftic model of images was that they are composed of three components: 1. Layout or form, for example the outline of a mandala is a form. 2. Color scheme, for example colors selected from autumn leaves from an oak tree. 3. Interpretation, for example Van Gogh would paint a mandala with oak tree colors in a different way to Andy Warhol. There is a Van Gogh interpretation and an Andy Warhol interpretation. Further I wanted to be able to genetically breed images, for example crossing two layouts to produce a child layout. And the same with interpretations and color schemes. If I could achieve this then the program would be very powerful. 1.2 Getting to Gliftic Programming has an amazing way of crystalising ideas. If you want to put an idea into practice via a computer program you really have to understand the idea not only globally, but just as importantly, in detail. You have to make hard design decisions, there can be no vagueness, and so implementing what I had decribed above turned out to be a considerable challenge. I soon found out that the hardest thing to do would be the breeding of forms. What are the "genes" of a form? What are the genes of a circle, say, and how do they compare to the genes of the outline of the UK? I wanted the genotype representation (inside the computer program's data) to be directly linked to the phenotype representation (on the computer screen). This seemed to be the best way of making sure that bred-forms would bare some visual relationship to their parents. I also wanted symmetry to be preserved. For example if two symmetrical objects were bred then their children should be symmetrical. I decided to represent shapes as simply closed polygonal shapes, and the "genes" of these shapes were simply the list of points defining the polygon. Thus a circle would have to be represented by a regular polygon of, say, 100 sides. The outline of the UK could easily be represented as a list of points every 10 Kilometers along the coast line. Now for the important question: what do you get when you cross a circle with the outline of the UK? I tried various ways of combining the "genes" (i.e. coordinates) of the shapes, but none of them really ended up producing interesting shapes. And of the methods I used, many of them, applied over several "generations" simply resulted in amorphous blobs, with no distinct family characteristics. Or rather maybe I should say that no single method of breeding shapes gave decent results for all types of images. Figure 1 shows an example of breeding a mandala with 6 regular polygons: Figure 1 Mandala bred with array of regular polygons I did not try out all my ideas, and maybe in the future I will return to the problem, but it was clear to me that it is a non-trivial problem. And if the breeding of shapes is a non-trivial problem, then what about the breeding of interpretations? I abandoned the genetic (breeding) model of generating designs but retained the idea of the three components (form, color scheme, interpretation). 1.3 Gliftic today Gliftic Version 1.0 was released in May 2000. It allows the user to change a form, a color scheme and an interpretation. The user can experiment with combining different components together and can thus home in on an personally pleasing image. Just as in Repligator, pushing the F7 key make the program choose all the options. Unlike Repligator however the user can also easily experiment with the form (only) by pushing F4, the color scheme (only) by pushing F5 and the interpretation (only) by pushing F6. Figures 2, 3 and 4 show some example images created by Gliftic. Figure 2 Mandala interpreted with arabesques Figure 3 Trellis interpreted with "graphic ivy" Figure 4 Regular dots interpreted as "sparks" 1.4 Forms in Gliftic V1 Forms are simply collections of graphics primitives (points, lines, ellipses and polygons). The program generates these collections according to the user's instructions. Currently the forms are: Mandala, Regular Polygon, Random Dots, Random Sticks, Random Shapes, Grid Of Polygons, Trellis, Flying Leap, Sticks And Waves, Spoked Wheel, Biological Growth, Chequer Squares, Regular Dots, Single Line, Paisley, Random Circles, Chevrons. 1.5 Color Schemes in Gliftic V1 When combining a form with an interpretation (described later) the program needs to know what colors it can use. The range of colors is called a color scheme. Gliftic has three color scheme types: 1. Random colors: Colors for the various parts of the image are chosen purely at random. 2. Hue Saturation Value (HSV) colors: The user can choose the main hue (e.g. red or yellow), the saturation (purity) of the color scheme and the value (brightness/darkness) . The user also has to choose how much variation is allowed in the color scheme. A wide variation allows the various colors of the final image to depart a long way from the HSV settings. A smaller variation results in the final image using almost a single color. 3. Colors chosen from an image: The user can choose an image (for example a JPG file of a famous painting, or a digital photograph he took while on holiday in Greece) and Gliftic will select colors from that image. Only colors from the selected image will appear in the output image. 1.6 Interpretations in Gliftic V1 Interpretation in Gliftic is best decribed with a few examples. A pure geometric line could be interpreted as: 1) the branch of a tree 2) a long thin arabesque 3) a sequence of disks 4) a chain, 5) a row of diamonds. An pure geometric ellipse could be interpreted as 1) a lake, 2) a planet, 3) an eye. Gliftic V1 has the following interpretations: Standard, Circles, Flying Leap, Graphic Ivy, Diamond Bar, Sparkz, Ess Disk, Ribbons, George Haite, Arabesque, ZigZag. 1.7 Applications of Gliftic Currently Gliftic is mostly used for creating WEB graphics, often backgrounds as it has an option to enable "tiling" of the generated images. There is also a possibility that it will be used in the custom textile business sometime within the next year or two. The real application of Gliftic is that of generating new graphics ideas, and I suspect that, like Repligator, many users will only understand this later. 2. The future of Gliftic, 3 possibilties Completing Gliftic V1 gave me the experience to understand what problems and opportunities there will be in future development of the program. Here I divide my many ideas into three oversimplified possibilities, and the real result may be a mix of two or all three of them. 2.1 Continue the current development "linearly" Gliftic could grow simply by the addition of more forms and interpretations. In fact I am sure that initially it will grow like this. However this limits the possibilities to what is inside the program itself. These limits can be mitigated by allowing the user to add forms (as vector files). The user can already add color schemes (as images). The biggest problem with leaving the program in its current state is that there is no easy way to add interpretations. 2.2 Allow the artist to program Gliftic It would be interesting to add a language to Gliftic which allows the user to program his own form generators and interpreters. In this way Gliftic becomes a "platform" for the development of dynamic graphics styles by the artist. The advantage of not having to deal with the complexities of Windows programming could attract the more adventurous artists and designers. The choice of programming language of course needs to take into account the fact that the "programmer" is probably not be an expert computer scientist. I have seen how LISP (an not exactly easy artificial intelligence language) has become very popular among non programming users of AutoCAD. If, to complete a job which you do manually and repeatedly, you can write a LISP macro of only 5 lines, then you may be tempted to learn enough LISP to write those 5 lines. Imagine also the ability to publish (and/or sell) "style generators". An artist could develop a particular interpretation function, it creates images of a given character which others find appealing. The interpretation (which runs inside Gliftic as a routine) could be offered to interior designers (for example) to unify carpets, wallpaper, furniture coverings for single projects. As Adrian Ward [3] says on his WEB site: "Programming is no less an artform than painting is a technical process." Learning a computer language to create a single image is overkill and impractical. Learning a computer language to create your own artistic style which generates an infinite series of images in that style may well be attractive. 2.3 Add an artificial conciousness to Gliftic This is a wild science fiction idea which comes into my head regularly. Gliftic manages to surprise the users with the images it makes, but, currently, is limited by what gets programmed into it or by pure chance. How about adding a real artifical conciousness to the program? Creating an intelligent artificial designer? According to Igor Aleksander [1] conciousness is required for programs (computers) to really become usefully intelligent. Aleksander thinks that "the line has been drawn under the philosophical discussion of conciousness, and the way is open to sound scientific investigation". Without going into the details, and with great over-simplification, there are roughly two sorts of artificial intelligence: 1) Programmed intelligence, where, to all intents and purposes, the programmer is the "intelligence". The program may perform well (but often, in practice, doesn't) and any learning which is done is simply statistical and pre-programmed. There is no way that this type of program could become concious. 2) Neural network intelligence, where the programs are based roughly on a simple model of the brain, and the network learns how to do specific tasks. It is this sort of program which, according to Aleksander, could, in the future, become concious, and thus usefully intelligent. What could the advantages of an artificial artist be? 1) There would be no need for programming. Presumbably the human artist would dialog with the artificial artist, directing its development. 2) The artificial artist could be used as an apprentice, doing the "drudge" work of art, which needs intelligence, but is, anyway, monotonous for the human artist. 3) The human artist imagines "concepts", the artificial artist makes them concrete. 4) An concious artificial artist may come up with ideas of its own. Is this science fiction? Arthur C. Clarke's 1st Law: "If a famous scientist says that something can be done, then he is in all probability correct. If a famous scientist says that something cannot be done, then he is in all probability wrong". Arthur C Clarke's 2nd Law: "Only by trying to go beyond the current limits can you find out what the real limits are." One of Bertrand Russell's 10 commandments: "Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric" 3. References 1. "From Ramon Llull to Image Idea Generation". Ransen, Owen. Proceedings of the 1998 Milan First International Conference on Generative Art. 2. "How To Build A Mind" Aleksander, Igor. Wiedenfeld and Nicolson, 1999 3. "How I Drew One of My Pictures: or, The Authorship of Generative Art" by Adrian Ward and Geof Cox. Proceedings of the 1999 Milan 2nd International Conference on Generative Art.
series	other
email
more	http://www.generativeart.com/
last changed	2003/08/07 17:25

_id	af6d
authors	Rockwood, Alyn P. and Winget, Jim
year	1997
title	Three-dimensional object reconstruction from two-dimensional images
source	Computer-Aided Design, Vol. 29 (4) (1997) pp. 279-285
summary	In order to construct a 3D model from a collection of 2D images of an object, an energy function is defined between the object's images and corresponding images ofan articulated mesh in three dimensions. Repeated adjustment of the mesh to minimize the energy function results in a mesh that produces images which closelyapproximate the input images, that is to say that under the appropriate conditions it realizes a preconceived object. It has implications for model building, reverseengineering and computer vision. Minimization of the energy function is a multivariate problem of large scale with many local minima. We give an approach forsolving this problem. For certain restricted, but useful applications, intuitive solutions to the minimization are consistently obtained.
keywords	Reverse Engineering, Simulated Annealing, Object Reconstruction
series	journal paper
last changed	2003/05/15 21:33

_id	6537
authors	Wang, W. and Gero, J.S.
year	1997
title	Sequence-based prediction in the conceptual design of bridges
source	ASCE Journal of Computing in Civil Engineering 11(1): 37-43
summary	This paper explores the application of a machine learning technique in knowledge support systems in civil engineering design. It presents a sequence-based prediction method for engineering design and demonstrates its utility in the conceptual design of bridges. The basic idea of sequence-based prediction is that the most recent numbers of similar design cases are used in predicting the characteristics of the next design and more recent cases are given stronger influence on decision making in the new design situation than older ones. This paper develops a model of sequence-based prediction and carries out a number of experiments using it. It is then applide to a set of standard data and the results of using a sequence-based prediction method are compared with other methods. The empirical results show the potential applications of the method in engineering design.
keywords	Machine Learning, Time
series	journal paper
email
last changed	2003/05/15 21:45

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