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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	f02d
authors	Vries, B. de, Achten, H. and Jessurun, J.
year	1998
title	What offers Virtual Reality to the Designer?
source	Proceedings of Conference on Integrated Design & Process Technology, Berlin, Germany
summary	Virtual Reality being a relatively new technology receives much attention in scientific research as well as in public news media. In the first case because of the technical problems that still have to be solved to offer the functionality and performance required by the application developers. In the second case because of the appealing interface between the application user and the computer system. Design in general and especially architectural design has a long-standing tradition in solving design problems by mixing artistic and scientific approaches. Research has resulted in design theories and methodologies in order to better understand the design process and from that to improve the quality of the designed product. Before applying Virtual Reality as an enabling technology for design, the characteristics of the technology and of the application must be specified. This is not an easy job since VR is not yet very 'stable' and design is a very complex process. From the knowledge and experience in the Calibre research group a first draft of a specification is presented so that we can draw some conclusions on the applicability of VR for design.
series	other
email
last changed	2003/04/23 15:50

_id	avocaad_2001_17
id	avocaad_2001_17
authors	Ying-Hsiu Huang, Yu-Tung Liu, Cheng-Yuan Lin, Yi-Ting Cheng, Yu-Chen Chiu
year	2001
title	The comparison of animation, virtual reality, and scenario scripting in design process
source	AVOCAAD - ADDED VALUE OF COMPUTER AIDED ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN, Nys Koenraad, Provoost Tom, Verbeke Johan, Verleye Johan (Eds.), (2001) Hogeschool voor Wetenschap en Kunst - Departement Architectuur Sint-Lucas, Campus Brussel, ISBN 80-76101-05-1
summary	Design media is a fundamental tool, which can incubate concrete ideas from ambiguous concepts. Evolved from freehand sketches, physical models to computerized drafting, modeling (Dave, 2000), animations (Woo, et al., 1999), and virtual reality (Chiu, 1999; Klercker, 1999; Emdanat, 1999), different media are used to communicate to designers or users with different conceptual levels¡@during the design process. Extensively employed in design process, physical models help designers in managing forms and spaces more precisely and more freely (Millon, 1994; Liu, 1996).Computerized drafting, models, animations, and VR have gradually replaced conventional media, freehand sketches and physical models. Diversely used in the design process, computerized media allow designers to handle more divergent levels of space than conventional media do. The rapid emergence of computers in design process has ushered in efforts to the visual impact of this media, particularly (Rahman, 1992). He also emphasized the use of computerized media: modeling and animations. Moreover, based on Rahman's study, Bai and Liu (1998) applied a new design media¡Xvirtual reality, to the design process. In doing so, they proposed an evaluation process to examine the visual impact of this new media in the design process. That same investigation pointed towards the facilitative role of the computerized media in enhancing topical comprehension, concept realization, and development of ideas.Computer technology fosters the growth of emerging media. A new computerized media, scenario scripting (Sasada, 2000; Jozen, 2000), markedly enhances computer animations and, in doing so, positively impacts design processes. For the three latest media, i.e., computerized animation, virtual reality, and scenario scripting, the following question arises: What role does visual impact play in different design phases of these media. Moreover, what is the origin of such an impact? Furthermore, what are the similarities and variances of computing techniques, principles of interaction, and practical applications among these computerized media?This study investigates the similarities and variances among computing techniques, interacting principles, and their applications in the above three media. Different computerized media in the design process are also adopted to explore related phenomenon by using these three media in two projects. First, a renewal planning project of the old district of Hsinchu City is inspected, in which animations and scenario scripting are used. Second, the renewal project is compared with a progressive design project for the Hsinchu Digital Museum, as designed by Peter Eisenman. Finally, similarity and variance among these computerized media are discussed.This study also examines the visual impact of these three computerized media in the design process. In computerized animation, although other designers can realize the spatial concept in design, users cannot fully comprehend the concept. On the other hand, other media such as virtual reality and scenario scripting enable users to more directly comprehend what the designer's presentation.Future studies should more closely examine how these three media impact the design process. This study not only provides further insight into the fundamental characteristics of the three computerized media discussed herein, but also enables designers to adopt different media in the design stages. Both designers and users can more fully understand design-related concepts.
series	AVOCAAD
email
last changed	2005/09/09 10:48

_id	50a1
authors	Hoffman, Donald
year	1998
title	Visual Intelligence
source	Norton Publishing, New York
summary	After his stroke, Mr. P still had outstanding memory and intelligence. He could still read and talk, and mixed well with the other patients on his ward. His vision was in most respects normal---with one notable exception: He couldn't recognize the faces of people or animals. As he put it himself, "I can see the eyes, nose, and mouth quite clearly, but they just don't add up. They all seem chalked in, like on a blackboard ... I have to tell by the clothes or by the voice whether it is a man or a woman ...The hair may help a lot, or if there is a mustache ... ." Even his own face, seen in a mirror, looked to him strange and unfamiliar. Mr. P had lost a critical aspect of his visual intelligence. We have long known about IQ and rational intelligence. And, due in part to recent advances in neuroscience and psychology, we have begun to appreciate the importance of emotional intelligence. But we are largely ignorant that there is even such a thing as visual intelligence---that is, until it is severely impaired, as in the case of Mr. P, by a stroke or other insult to visual cortex. The culprit in our ignorance is visual intelligence itself. Vision is normally so swift and sure, so dependable and informative, and apparently so effortless that we naturally assume that it is, indeed, effortless. But the swift ease of vision, like the graceful ease of an Olympic ice skater, is deceptive. Behind the graceful ease of the skater are years of rigorous training, and behind the swift ease of vision is an intelligence so great that it occupies nearly half of the brain's cortex. Our visual intelligence richly interacts with, and in many cases precedes and drives, our rational and emotional intelligence. To understand visual intelligence is to understand, in large part, who we are. It is also to understand much about our highly visual culture in which, as the saying goes, image is everything. Consider, for instance, our entertainment. Visual effects lure us into theaters, and propel films like Star Wars and Jurassic Park to record sales. Music videos usher us before surreal visual worlds, and spawn TV stations like MTV and VH-1. Video games swallow kids (and adults) for hours on end, and swell the bottom lines of companies like Sega and Nintendo. Virtual reality, popularized in movies like Disclosure and Lawnmower Man, can immerse us in visual worlds of unprecedented realism, and promises to transform not only entertainment but also architecture, education, manufacturing, and medicine. As a culture we vote with our time and wallets and, in the case of entertainment, our vote is clear. Just as we enjoy rich literature that stimulates our rational intelligence, or a moving story that engages our emotional intelligence, so we also seek out and enjoy new media that challenge our visual intelligence. Or consider marketing and advertisement, which daily manipulate our buying habits with sophisticated images. Corporations spend millions each year on billboards, packaging, magazine ads, and television commercials. Their images can so powerfully influence our behavior that they sometimes generate controversy---witness the uproar over Joe Camel. If you're out to sell something, understanding visual intelligence is, without question, critical to the design of effective visual marketing. And if you're out to buy something, understanding visual intelligence can help clue you in to what is being done to you as a consumer, and how it's being done. This book is a highly illustrated and accessible introduction to visual intelligence, informed by the latest breakthroughs in vision research. Perhaps the most surprising insight that has emerged from vision research is this: Vision is not merely a matter of passive perception, it is an intelligent process of active construction. What you see is, invariably, what your visual intelligence constructs. Just as scientists intelligently construct useful theories based on experimental evidence, so vision intelligently constructs useful visual worlds based on images at the eyes. The main difference is that the constructions of scientists are done consciously, but those of vision are done, for the most part, unconsciously.
series	other
last changed	2003/04/23 15:14

_id	2edf
authors	Levy, Pierre
year	1998
title	Becoming Virtual, Reality in the Digital Age
source	Plenum Trade, New York
summary	Pierre Levy takes a fresh look at the whole idea of what is virtual. He's responding to the widespread belief, and sometimes even panic, that a digital society with emphasis on virtual interactions is necessarily depersonalizing. He takes particular exception to the notion that "virtual" and "real" are opposites. Instead, Levy argues that virtuality is one of four modes of existence, the rest of which he describes as reality, possibility, and actuality. Each is defined in terms of its relationship with its environment. In following Levy's world view, you may find that he interprets some or all of those terms in ways you're not used to, but the result is an interesting new approach to what it means to be part of an increasingly digital world. He examines the virtualization of several elements our society: the corporal body, text, the economy, language, technology, contracts, intelligence, subjects, and objects. What he finds is not a destruction of the personal so much as a transformation. Virtualization adds to, but does not replace, the real, the possible, and the actual. By understanding what virtualization means and involves, Levy believes that society will gain a greater variety of options for interaction in all areas. Becoming Virtual is a serious philosophical work, dense with ideas.
series	other
last changed	2003/04/23 15:14

_id	170f
authors	Mora Padrón, Víctor Manuel
year	1999
title	Integration and Application of Technologies CAD in a Regional Reality - Methodological and Formative Experience in Industrial Design and Products Development
source	III Congreso Iberoamericano de Grafico Digital [SIGRADI Conference Proceedings] Montevideo (Uruguay) September 29th - October 1st 1999, pp. 295-297
summary	The experience to present is begun and developed during the academic year 1998, together to the course of IV pupils level of the Industrial Design career in the Universidad del Bío-Bío, labor that I have continued assuming during the present year, with a new youths generation. We have accomplished our academic work taking as original of study and base, the industrial and economic situation of the VIII Region, context in the one which we outline and we commit our needs formative as well as methodological to the teaching of the discipline of the Industrial Design. Consequently, we have defined a high-priority factor among pupils and teachers to reach the objectives and activities program of the course, the one which envisages first of all a commitment of attitude and integrative reflection among our academic activity and the territorial human context in the one which we inhabit. In Chile the activity of the industrial designer, his knowledge and by so much his capacity of producing innovation, it has been something practically unknown in the industrial productive area. However, the current national development challenges and the search by widening our markets, they have created and established a conscience of the fact that the Chilean industrial product must have a modern and effective competitiveness if wants be made participates in segments of the international marketing. It is in this new vision where the design provides in decisive form to consider and add a commercial and cultural value in our products. To the university corresponds the role of transmitting the knowledge generated in his classrooms toward the society, for thus to promote a development in the widest sense of the word. Under this prism the small and median regional industry in their various areas, have not integrated in the national arrangement in what concerns to the design and development of new and integral products. The design and the innovation as motor concept for a competitiveness and permanency in new markets, it has not entered yet in the entrepreneurial culture. If we want to save this situation, it is necessary that the regional entrepreneur knows the importance of the Design with new models development and examples of application, through concrete cases and with demands, that serve of base to demonstrate that the alliance among Designer and Industry, opens new perspectives of growth upon offering innovation and value added factors as new competitiveness tools. Today the communication and the managing of the information is a strategic weapon, to the moment of making changes in a social dynamics, so much at local level as global. It is with this look that our efforts and objective are centered in forming to our pupils with an integration speech and direct application toward the industrial community of our region, using the communication and the technological information as a tool validates and effective to solve the receipt in the visualization of our projects, designs and solutions of products. As complement to the development of the proposed topic will be exhibited a series of projects accomplished by the pupils for some regional industries, in which the three dimensional modeling and the use of programs vectoriales demonstrate the efficiency of communication and comprehension of the proposals, its complexity and constructive possibilities.
series	SIGRADI
email
last changed	2016/03/10 09:55

_id	cf9d
authors	Yeung, C., Cheung, L., Yen, J. and Cheng, C.
year	1998
title	Virtual Classroom for Architecture
source	CAADRIA ‘98 [Proceedings of The Third Conference on Computer Aided Architectural Design Research in Asia / ISBN 4-907662-009] Osaka (Japan) 22-24 April 1998, pp. 93-102
doi	https://doi.org/10.52842/conf.caadria.1998.093
summary	Over the past few years, we have seen that the evolution of the Internet and World Wide Web technologies have significantly enhanced the global communication and collaboration. People, no matter where they are, are virtually getting closer and closer. The barriers that came from time and distance have been partially removed by the use of such technologies. Internet and WWW are not just technology, they are an environment or space. With such breakthrough in technologies, a new paradigm in education is there. The education very differently from what we have now. This paper presents an Internet-based environment to support teaching and learning in architecture education. We will discuss the design concept and how to integrate the technology and knowledge-based techniques to implement the learning environment for architecture students. Architecture is a very specific discipline which consists of the knowledge from arts, sciences, engineering, and more. One of the focuses in architecture education is to teach how to express and communicate design ideas with the multimedia or other technologies, such as, virtual reality (VR). A case study presented in this paper is about how to deliver and present the ancient Chinese temples and its bracket set systems from the server to the browsers to support distance teaching. That is, students and teachers may not be in the same location, but they are able to watch the same objects and to exchange ideas. We will discuss how to use multimedia technologies to illustrate how a temple and its bracket set differ from dynasties to dynasties and introduce its basic properties to the viewers. Moreover, we will discuss how we organize and handle 3-dimensional objects with such system. Many people are still arguing about whether Internet-based teaching or a real classroom setting is better. We are not implying that Internet-based teaching is superior or predicting that it will dominate the teaching in the near future. However, we strongly believe that it is just another alternative to express and represent architectural thinking to over some of the barriers that come from time and distance. We believe, that it is always true, that the Internet-based teaching may provide both teachers and learners greater flexibility and to support more International collaboration. That is, regardless where the students or teachers are, they can always participate in learning or teaching and make teaching and learning much more rich and interesting.
keywords	Virtual Classroom
series	CAADRIA
email
more	http://www.caadria.org
last changed	2022/06/07 07:57

_id	ddss9801
id	ddss9801
authors	Achten, Henri and Leeuwen, Jos van
year	1998
title	A Feature-Based Description Technique for Design Processes: A Case Study
source	Timmermans, Harry (Ed.), Fourth Design and Decision Support Systems in Architecture and Urban Planning Maastricht, the Netherlands), ISBN 90-6814-081-7, July 26-29, 1998
summary	In order to develop appropriate tools for decision support in design processes, it is necessary to found them on an understanding of design. Analytical techniques of design processes that have a direct relationship with tool development can enhance design support systems development. The paper focuses on a design support system in the VR-DIS research program. The aim of this research program is to develop insight in the architectural design process and to establish design tools for architectsworking in Virtual Reality. The basic approach for data modelling in VR in this research is based on an extension of the Feature Based Modelling paradigm taken from design in mechanical engineering. The computer model of the design in the system is a Feature-based model. This paper describes design processes in terms of changes in the Feature-based model of the design. For this purpose, a case of a house design is used. Drawings in the conceptual design phase up to the preliminary design phase arestudied. Each state of the drawings is described in terms of a Feature-model. Particular design actions such as creation of spaces, definition of architectural elements, and changes during the design process can be expressed in terms of changes in the Feature-model. Because of the use of Features, the changes can be formalised in the VR-DIS system. The description in terms of Features offers an analytical toolthat leads to a functional brief for design support tools. The paper ends with a discussion of implications and future work.
series	DDSS
last changed	2003/11/21 15:15

_id	a136
authors	Blaise, J.Y., Dudek, I. and Drap, P.
year	1998
title	Java collaborative interface for architectural simulations A case study on wooden ceilings of Krakow
source	International Conference On Conservation - Krakow 2000, 23-24 November 1998, Krakow, Poland
summary	Concern for the architectural and urban preservation problems has been considerably increasing in the past decades, and with it the necessity to investigate the consequences and opportunities opened for the conservation discipline by the development of computer-based systems. Architectural interventions on historical edifices or in preserved urban fabric face conservationists and architects with specific problems related to the handling and exchange of a variety of historical documents and representations. The recent development of information technologies offers opportunities to favour a better access to such data, as well as means to represent architectural hypothesis or design. Developing applications for the Internet also introduces a greater capacity to exchange experiences or ideas and to invest on low-cost collaborative working platforms. In the field of the architectural heritage, our research addresses two problems: historical data and documentation of the edifice, methods of representation (knowledge modelling and visualisation) of the edifice. This research is connected with the ARKIW POLONIUM co-operation program that links the MAP-GAMSAU CNRS laboratory (Marseilles, France) and the Institute HAiKZ of Kraków's Faculty of Architecture. The ARKIW programme deals with questions related to the use of information technologies in the recording, protection and studying of the architectural heritage. Case studies are chosen in order to experience and validate a technical platform dedicated to the formalisation and exchange of knowledge related to the architectural heritage (architectural data management, representation and simulation tools, survey methods, ...). A special focus is put on the evolution of the urban fabric and on the simulation of reconstructional hypothesis. Our contribution will introduce current ARKIW internet applications and experiences: The ARPENTEUR architectural survey experiment on Wie¿a Ratuszowa (a photogrammetrical survey based on an architectural model). A Gothic and Renaissance reconstruction of the Ratusz Krakowski using a commercial modelisation and animation software (MAYA). The SOL on line documentation interface for Kraków's Rynek G_ówny. Internet analytical approach in the presentation of morphological informations about Kraków's Kramy Bogate Rynku Krakowskiego. Object-Orientation approach in the modelling of the architectural corpus. The VALIDEUR and HUBLOT Virtual Reality modellers for the simulation and representation of reconstructional hypothesis and corpus analysis.
series	other
last changed	2003/04/23 15:14

_id	e72f
authors	Dorta, Tomás and LaLande, Philippe
year	1998
title	The Impact of Virtual Reality on the Design Process
source	Digital Design Studios: Do Computers Make a Difference? [ACADIA Conference Proceedings / ISBN 1-880250-07-1] Québec City (Canada) October 22-25, 1998, pp. 138-163
doi	https://doi.org/10.52842/conf.acadia.1998.138
summary	Sketching, either hand or computer generated, along with other traditional visualization tools such as perspective drawing have difficulty in correctly representing three dimensional objects. Even physical models, in architecture, suffer in this regard because of inevitable scaling. The designer finds himself cut off from the reality of the object and is prone to misinterpretations of the object and its surrounding space and to resulting design errors. These are sometimes not perceived until too late, once the object has been constructed. Traditional tools use 2D media to represent 3D objects and only manage to introduce the third dimension in a limited manner (perspectives, not only tedious to construct, are static). This scenario affects the design process, particularly the cycle of proposal, verification and correction of design hypotheses as well as the cognitive aspects that condition the designer’s visualization of the designed object. In most cases, computer graphics mimic, through its interface, the traditional way of doing things. The architectural model is parametricized with little regard for visualization. No allowance is made for the change in the medium of graphic representation. Moreover, effort is not made to capitalize on the advantages of numerical calculation to propose new interfaces and new dimensions in object visualization. Virtual Reality (VR), seen not only as technology but as experience, brings the 3D object, abstractly viewed by traditional means, into clearer focus and provides us with these new dimensions. Errors due to abstracted representation are reduced since the interface is always three dimensional and the interactions intuitively made in real time thus allowing the designer to experience the presence of the designed object very quickly. At the École de design industriel of the Faculté d’aménagement, we have run tests using non-immersive VR–one passive (comprehension) and another active (design). This project, involving a group of 72 students during a period of six weeks (6h/week), aimed at analyzing the impact of VR as a visualization tool on the design process versus traditional tools. The results, described in this presentation, shed light on the effect of VR on the creative process as such, as well as on the quality of the results produced by that process.
series	ACADIA
email
last changed	2022/06/07 07:55

_id	0f4c
authors	Asanowicz, Aleksander
year	1998
title	From Real to Cyber Reality
source	Cyber-Real Design [Conference Proceedings / ISBN 83-905377-2-9] Bialystock (Poland), 23-25 April 1998, pp. 11-19
summary	Human activity takes place in two planes, at two levels. Practical activity is present in one of the planes, the other level is occupied by purely cognitive activity. When observing sufficiently long sequences of practical and cognitive activities, one notices transitions between them, which prove true the suspicions of their functional relationship. Because on both of these planes of human activity there is always one and the same element present - an informative element - which on the first plane functions as subordinate, and in the other as an independent one, one can search for a common characteristic for both planes. Such common characteristic for both levels of human activity can be perceived in the fact that in both situations the activity of a human is based on CREATION. Human thinking is based on transitions between what is accessible through experience and what is referred to conceptually. The human thought exists only and exclusively in the vertical motion: from the phenomenal level to the structural level direction of abstraction) and from the conceptual level to the empirical level direction of concretisation). All human activity is multilayered or, more precisely, it is an activity within many layers: the sensual one as well as the structural one. The appearance of conceptual thinking has created a qualitatively new type of a situation. This novelty can be easily seen both in the sphere of the practical cognitive activity as well as in the sphere of the pure cognitive activity. In both cases, the cognitive activity of a human is of a "double-decker" character: image and concept. It is necessary to note here that the "image" does not only mean structural, concrete, but also one which is purely visual, abstract, of no physical form. Therefore, the human experience, being the result of the cognitive activity, is being expressed, becoming objective, materialising in two different but compatible ways. Firstly, in the material structures of practical significance - this way the material culture is created. Secondly - in material structures which have no practical meaning but are solely used for expressing the spiritual contents - thus creating the spiritual culture. Humans have developed an extraordinarily strong need for spiritual activity, which is manifested by the material activity, redundant from the point of view of the material needs.
series	plCAD
email
last changed	2003/05/17 10:01

_id	2796
authors	Brown, Andy and Lee, Hwa, Ryong
year	1998
title	A Mental Space Model
source	Cyber-Real Design [Conference Proceedings / ISBN 83-905377-2-9] Bialystock (Poland), 23-25 April 1998, pp. 27-42
summary	The architectural design process is often characterised a series of evolving ideas, and involving a cyclical process between design and visualisation. However, the nature of the internal representation still remains unclear. What is actually represented in a designers mental space and what drives and influences the mental design process? If we wish to programme a computer to mimic or work in tandem with the mental processes involved we need to make that representation and the associated cognitive processes explicit. The ways that designers form mental representations are so diverse, personal, and often transient that it is not easy to externalise and articulate them in explicit terms. In order to propose a mental model, we can take in a particular I psychological research approach; that of introspective observation from design drawing . In doing so, we posit an assumption that the designer's drawing can be seen as an extension of the internal mental feature, and hence internal representation could be inferred from the analysis of external representation - the drawing or sketch. This approach contrasts with the protocol analysis approach where mental operations are inferred from words, what could be termed thinking aloud.
series	plCAD
email
last changed	2003/05/17 10:01

_id	fb22
authors	Chien, Sheng-Fen
year	1998
title	Supporting information navigation in generative design systems
source	Camegie Mellon University, School of Architecture
summary	Generative design systems make it easier for designers to generate and explore design altematives, but the amount of information generated during a design session can become very large. Intelligent navigation aids are needed to enable designers to access the information with ease. Such aids may improve the usability of generative design systems and encourage their use in architectural practice. This dissertation presents a comprehensive approach to support navigation in generative design systems. This approach takes account of studies related to human spatial cognition, wayfinding in physical environments, and information navigation in electronic media. It contains a general model of design space, basic navigation operations, and principles for designing navigation support. The design space model describes how the space may grow and evolve along predictable dimensions. The basic operations facilitate navigation activities in this multi-dimensional design space. The design principles aim at guiding system developers in creating navigation utilities tailored to the needs of individual design systems. This approach is validated through prototype implementations and limited pilot usability studies. The validity of the design space model and basic navigation operations is examined through the development of a design space navigation framework that encapsulates the model and operations in a software environment and provides the infrastructure and mechanisms for supporting navigation. Three prototype navigation tools are implemented using this framework. These tools are subjected to usability studies. The studies show that these tools are easy to leam and are efficient in assisting designers locating desired information. In summary, it can be demonstrated that through the prototype implementations and usability studies, this approach offers sufficient support for the design and implementation of navigation aids in a generative design system. The research effort is a pioneer study on navigation support in generative design systems. It demonstrates why navigation support is necessary; how to provide the support; and what types of user interaction it can offer. This research contributes to information navigation studies not only in the specific domain of generative design system research, but also in the general field of human-computer interaction.
series	thesis:PhD
email
last changed	2003/02/12 22:37

_id	7f71
authors	De Landa, Manuel
year	1998
title	Meshworks, Hierarchies and Interfaces
source	Virtual Dimension Ed. Beckmann, J., Princeton Architectural Press, NewYork
summary	The world of interface design is today undergoing dramatic changes which in their impact promise to rival those brought about by the use of the point-and-click graphical interfaces popularized by the Macintosh in the early 1980's. The new concepts and metaphors which are aiming to replace the familiar desk-top metaphor all revolve around the notion of semi-autonomous, semi-intelligent software agents. To be sure, different researchers and commercial companies have divergent conceptions of what these agents should be capable of, and how they should interact with computer users. But whether one aims to give these software creatures the ability to learn about the users habits, as in the non-commercial research performed at MIT autonomous agents group, or to endow them with the ability to perform transactions in the users name, as in the commercial products pioneered by General Magic, the basic thrust seems to be in the direction of giving software programs more autonomy in their decision-making capabilities.
series	other
last changed	2003/04/23 15:50

_id	ga9811
id	ga9811
authors	Feuerstein, Penny L.
year	1998
title	Collage, Technology, and Creative Process
source	International Conference on Generative Art
summary	Since the turn of the twentieth century artists have been using collage to suggest new realities and changing concepts of time. Appropriation and simulation can be found in the earliest recycled scraps in Cubist collages. Picasso and Braque liberated the art world with cubism, which integrated all planes and surfaces of the artists' subjects and combined them into a new, radical form. The computer is a natural extension of their work on collage. The identifying characteristics of the computer are integration, simultaneity and evolution which are inherent in collage. Further, the computer is about "converting information". There is something very facinating about scanning an object into the computer, creating a texture brush and drawing with the object's texture. It is as if the computer not only integrates information but different levels of awareness as well. In the act of converting the object from atoms to bits the object is portrayed at the same conscious level as the spiritual act of drawing. The speed and malleability of transforming an image on the computer can be compared to the speed and malleability of thought processes of the mind. David Salle said, "one of the impulses in new art is the desire to be a mutant, whether it involves artificial intelligence, gender or robotic parts. It is about the desire to get outside the self and the desire to trandscend one's place." I use the computer to transcend, to work in different levels of awareness at the same time - the spiritual and the physical. In the creative process of working with computer, many new images are generated from previous ones. An image can be processed in unlimited ways without degradation of information. There is no concept of original and copy. The computer alters the image and changes it back to its original in seconds. Each image is not a fixed object in time, but the result of dynamic aspects which are acquired from previous works and each new moment. In this way, using the computer to assist the mind in the creative processes of making art mirrors the changing concepts of time, space, and reality that have evolved as the twentieth century has progressed. Nineteenth-century concepts of the monolithic truth have been replaced with dualism and pluralism. In other words, the objective world independent of the observer, that assumes the mind is separate from the body, has been replaced with the mind and body as inseparable, connected to the objective world through our perception and awareness. Marshall Mcluhan said, "All media as extensions of ourselves serve to provide new transforming vision and awareness." The computer can bring such complexities and at the same time be very calming because it can be ultrafocused, promoting a higher level of awareness where life can be experienced more vividly. Nicholas Negroponte pointed out that "we are passing into a post information age, often having an audience of just one." By using the computer to juxtapose disparate elements, I create an impossible coherence, a hodgepodge of imagery not wholly illusory. Interestingly, what separates the elements also joins them. Clement Greenberg states that "the collage medium has played a pivotal role in twentieth century painting and sculpture"(1) Perspective, developed by the renaissance archetect Alberti, echoed the optically perceived world as reality was replaced with Cubism. Cubism brought about the destruction of the illusionist means and effects that had characterized Western painting since the fifteenth century.(2) Clement Greenberg describes the way in which physical and spiritual realities are combined in cubist collages. "By pasting a piece of newspaper lettering to the canvas one called attention to the physical reality of the work of art and made that reality the same as the art."(3) Before I discuss some of the concepts that relate collage to working with computer, I would like to define some of the theories behind them. The French word collage means pasting, or gluing. Today the concept may include all forms of composite art and processes of photomontage and assemblage. In the Foreword on Katherine Hoffman's book on Collage Kim Levin writes: "This technique - which takes bits and pieces out of context to patch them into new contexts keeps changeng, adapting to various styles and concerns. And it's perfectly apt that interpretations of collage have varied according to the intellectual inquiries of the time. From our vantage point near the end of the century we can now begin to see that collage has all along carried postmodern genes."(4) Computer, on the other hand is not another medium. It is a visual tool that may be used in the creative process. Patrick D. Prince's views are," Computer art is not concrete. There is no artifact in digital art. The images exist in the computer's memory and can be viewed on a monitor: they are pure visual information."(5) In this way it relates more to conceptual art such as performance art. Timothy Binkley explains that,"I believe we will find the concept of the computer as a medium to be more misleading than useful. Computer art will be better understood and more readily accepted by a skeptical artworld if we acknowledge how different it is from traditional tools. The computer is an extension of the mind, not of the hand or eye,and ,unlike cinema or photography, it does not simply add a new medium to the artist's repertoire, based on a new technology.(6) Conceptual art marked a watershed between the progress of modern art and the pluralism of postmodernism(7) " Once the art is comes out of the computer, it can take a variety of forms or be used with many different media. The artist does not have to write his/her own program to be creative with the computer. The work may have the thumbprint of a specific program, but the creative possibilities are up to the artist. Computer artist John Pearson feels that,"One cannot overlook the fact that no matter how technically interesting the artwork is it has to withstand analysis. Only the creative imagination of the artist, cultivated from a solid conceptual base and tempered by a sophisticsated visual sensitivity, can develop and resolve the problems of art."(8) The artist has to be even more focused and selective by using the computer in the creative process because of the multitude of options it creates and its generative qualities.
series	other
email
more	http://www.generativeart.com/
last changed	2003/08/07 17:25

_id	a959
authors	Glanville, Ranulph
year	1998
title	Cybernetic Realities
source	Cyber-Real Design [Conference Proceedings / ISBN 83-905377-2-9] Bialystock (Poland), 23-25 April 1998, pp. 101-116
summary	In a meeting that focuses on the opportunities offered us by what the organisers call the "Cyber-Real", it is, perhaps, fitting to return to the root word on the so-called "CyberCulture", Cybernetics, and to reflect what the concepts and understandings it has developed and deals with offer us, especially in the light of the "Cyber-Real". To that end, I explore some features of current Cybernetic thinking in order to develop a view of Cybernetic Realities, and to use those to elucidate just what might be "Cyber-Real". The reader may well ask why this paper is called "Cybernetic Realities" when, all through, I talk of Cybernetic Reality. The reason comes from a key argument in this paper: each of us constructs our own Cybernetic Reality. The result is singularly plural.
series	plCAD
email
last changed	2003/05/17 10:01

_id	8
authors	Hermanson, Robert D.
year	1998
title	Re-Presentations: Media Inquiries Regarding Architecture
source	II Seminario Iberoamericano de Grafico Digital [SIGRADI Conference Proceedings / ISBN 978-97190-0-X] Mar del Plata (Argentina) 9-11 september 1998, pp. 66-75
summary	Within the framework of architectural practice as the academy, media supported worldwide interdependence and transient cultural waves are essential forces activating the current globalization phenomenon. Schools that have always engaged themselves in international dialogue, are now increasingly immersed in the rapidly developing media arena and global information networks. In this paper I propose a theoretical and pedagogical framework in which the concept of migration provides a useful model with which to investigate the transitory natures permeating cultures. These involve not only the literal moving from one physical world into another, but also the more abstract - from that of the so called "real" world into that of the "virtual". Through what I call re-presentations an experimental studio was conducted at the Universidad Nacional del Litorat in Santa Fe, Argentina involving multicultures (the USA and Argentina) and multi-disciplines (film/video and architecture). The conclusion suggests however, that such re-presentations posit paradoxical questions.
series	SIGRADI
email
last changed	2016/03/10 09:53

_id	ebb2
authors	Proctor, George
year	2000
title	Reflections on the VDS, Pedagogy, Methods
source	ACADIA Quarterly, vol. 19, no. 1, pp. 15-16
doi	https://doi.org/10.52842/conf.acadia.2000.015.2
summary	After having conducted a Digital Media based design studio at Cal Poly for six years, we have developed a body of experience I feel is worth sharing. When the idea of conducting a studio with the exclusive use of digital tools was implemented at our college, it was still somewhat novel, and only 2 short years after the first VDS- Virtual Design Studio (UBC, UHK et.al.-1993). When we began, most of what we explored required a suspension of disbelief on the part of both the students and faculty reviewers of studio work. In a few short years the notions we examined have become ubiquitous in academic architectural discourse and are expanding into common use in practice. (For background, the digital media component of our curriculum owes much to my time at Harvard GSD [MAUD 1989-91] and the texts of: McCullough/Mitchell 1990, 1994; McCullough 1998; Mitchell 1990,1992,1996; Tufte 1990; Turkel 1995; and Wojtowicz 1993; and others.)
series	ACADIA
email
last changed	2022/06/07 08:00

_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	ddss9845
id	ddss9845
authors	Reymen, Isabelle M.M.J.
year	1998
title	Design in Architecture, Software Engineering and Mechanical EngineeringA comparative study
source	Timmermans, Harry (Ed.), Fourth Design and Decision Support Systems in Architecture and Urban Planning Maastricht, the Netherlands), ISBN 90-6814-081-7, July 26-29, 1998
summary	The awareness about the gap between general design theory and design practice is increasing. Design practice is not really served with the results of current design theory. To build a bridge between theory and practice, design researchers should know what is really going on in practice. To explore design practice and to find the most important characteristics of design situations, I have chosen an empirical approach based on case studies in which design projects in different disciplines are compared. In each case study, an individual designer is interviewed and the design documents are analysed. The results in this article are based on two architectural projects, two software-engineering projects and two mechanical-engineering projects. The cross-case analysis has resulted indescriptions of design situations in these disciplines. A preliminary design frame to describe design situations in different disciplines has been derived. Based on similarities and differences in the descriptions, conclusions concerning design theory, design education and design practice are given. The most important conclusions are the following. First, designers are often not aware of their design process, but focus mainly on the product. Second, software designers more often than architects andmechanical engineers use methods to structure their overall design process.
series	DDSS
email
last changed	2003/08/07 16:36

_id	avocaad_2001_16
id	avocaad_2001_16
authors	Yu-Ying Chang, Yu-Tung Liu, Chien-Hui Wong
year	2001
title	Some Phenomena of Spatial Characteristics of Cyberspace
source	AVOCAAD - ADDED VALUE OF COMPUTER AIDED ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN, Nys Koenraad, Provoost Tom, Verbeke Johan, Verleye Johan (Eds.), (2001) Hogeschool voor Wetenschap en Kunst - Departement Architectuur Sint-Lucas, Campus Brussel, ISBN 80-76101-05-1
summary	"Space," which has long been an important concept in architecture (Bloomer & Moore, 1977; Mitchell, 1995, 1999), has attracted interest of researchers from various academic disciplines in recent years (Agnew, 1993; Benko & Strohmayer, 1996; Chang, 1999; Foucault, 1982; Gould, 1998). Researchers from disciplines such as anthropology, geography, sociology, philosophy, and linguistics regard it as the basis of the discussion of various theories in social sciences and humanities (Chen, 1999). On the other hand, since the invention of Internet, Internet users have been experiencing a new and magic "world." According to the definitions in traditional architecture theories, "space" is generated whenever people define a finite void by some physical elements (Zevi, 1985). However, although Internet is a virtual, immense, invisible and intangible world, navigating in it, we can still sense the very presence of ourselves and others in a wonderland. This sense could be testified by our naming of Internet as Cyberspace -- an exotic kind of space. Therefore, as people nowadays rely more and more on the Internet in their daily life, and as more and more architectural scholars and designers begin to invest their efforts in the design of virtual places online (e.g., Maher, 1999; Li & Maher, 2000), we cannot help but ask whether there are indeed sensible spaces in Internet. And if yes, these spaces exist in terms of what forms and created by what ways?To join the current interdisciplinary discussion on the issue of space, and to obtain new definition as well as insightful understanding of "space", this study explores the spatial phenomena in Internet. We hope that our findings would ultimately be also useful for contemporary architectural designers and scholars in their designs in the real world.As a preliminary exploration, the main objective of this study is to discover the elements involved in the creation/construction of Internet spaces and to examine the relationship between human participants and Internet spaces. In addition, this study also attempts to investigate whether participants from different academic disciplines define or experience Internet spaces in different ways, and to find what spatial elements of Internet they emphasize the most.In order to achieve a more comprehensive understanding of the spatial phenomena in Internet and to overcome the subjectivity of the members of the research team, the research design of this study was divided into two stages. At the first stage, we conducted literature review to study existing theories of space (which are based on observations and investigations of the physical world). At the second stage of this study, we recruited 8 Internet regular users to approach this topic from different point of views, and to see whether people with different academic training would define and experience Internet spaces differently.The results of this study reveal that the relationship between human participants and Internet spaces is different from that between human participants and physical spaces. In the physical world, physical elements of space must be established first; it then begins to be regarded as a place after interaction between/among human participants or interaction between human participants and the physical environment. In contrast, in Internet, a sense of place is first created through human interactions (or activities), Internet participants then begin to sense the existence of a space. Therefore, it seems that, among the many spatial elements of Internet we found, "interaction/reciprocity" Ñ either between/among human participants or between human participants and the computer interface Ð seems to be the most crucial element.In addition, another interesting result of this study is that verbal (linguistic) elements could provoke a sense of space in a degree higher than 2D visual representation and no less than 3D visual simulations. Nevertheless, verbal and 3D visual elements seem to work in different ways in terms of cognitive behaviors: Verbal elements provoke visual imagery and other sensory perceptions by "imagining" and then excite personal experiences of space; visual elements, on the other hand, provoke and excite visual experiences of space directly by "mapping".Finally, it was found that participants with different academic training did experience and define space differently. For example, when experiencing and analyzing Internet spaces, architecture designers, the creators of the physical world, emphasize the design of circulation and orientation, while participants with linguistics training focus more on subtle language usage. Visual designers tend to analyze the graphical elements of virtual spaces based on traditional painting theories; industrial designers, on the other hand, tend to treat these spaces as industrial products, emphasizing concept of user-center and the control of the computer interface.The findings of this study seem to add new information to our understanding of virtual space. It would be interesting for future studies to investigate how this information influences architectural designers in their real-world practices in this digital age. In addition, to obtain a fuller picture of Internet space, further research is needed to study the same issue by examining more Internet participants who have no formal linguistics and graphical training.
series	AVOCAAD
email
last changed	2005/09/09 10:48

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