Title: Development of a computer-assisted procedure for car style design

Authors: Ming-Chyuan Lin, Ing-Horng Yan

Addresses: Department of Industrial Design, College of Engineering, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan 701, Taiwan. ' Institute of Applied Arts, College of Humanities and Social Sciences, National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu 300, Taiwan

Abstract: The generation of curvilinear forms in product design is a very complicated activity. The purpose of this research is to develop a computer-assisted design procedure for the car style design to explore an efficient way in dealing with curvilinear surface products. During the development process, the Le Corbusier Modulus in form principles is applied to design the component forms. The weighted average method is used to determine a visual centre for the product form. Semantic differential adjectives and nouns are identified to link the users| requirements with the design style, and the B-spline curve and surface method, with the assistance of Alias software, are applied to build a rendering representation of the car style. The results indicate that the developed procedure provides designers with an integrated approach to design irregular product forms more efficiently.

Keywords: Le Corbusier Modulus; weighted average method; semantic differential method; B-spline curves; B-spline surfaces; CAD; vehicle design; vehicle styling; curvilinear forms; product design; style design; irregular product forms.

DOI: 10.1504/IJVD.2004.005240

International Journal of Vehicle Design, 2004 Vol.35 No.4, pp.289 - 306

Published online: 15 Sep 2004 *

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