Title: Digital sketching and haptic sketch modelling during product design and development

Authors: Mark Evans; Eujin Pei; David Cheshire; Ian Graham

Addresses: Loughborough Design School, Loughborough University, Loughborough LE11 3TU, UK ' Department of Design, Brunel University London, Uxbridge UB8 3PH, UK ' Faculty of Computing, Engineering & Science, Staffordshire University, Stoke-on-Trent, ST4 2DE, UK ' Wolfson School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, Loughborough University, Loughborough LE11 3TU, UK

Abstract: During the practice of industrial design, digital methods are used to support the generation, development and specification of creative three dimensional (3D) form. Despite the increasing capabilities of digital methods, the distinctive nuances of current practice continue to use non-digital methods, particularly during the creative concept generation activities. This paper reports on a research project that combined emerging and established digital design technologies to define an approach for total 'Digital Industrial Design' (DID) that employs only digital methods (e.g. no pens/paper) with no post-process finishing (e.g. smoothing/painting of rapid prototype parts). The paper concludes that DID has the greatest potential for change and benefit during concept generation, where haptic feedback modelling and monochrome 3D printing have the capacity to replicate some of the qualities of tactile form-giving associated with workshop-based sketch modelling. To maximise impact, the case study was translated into in a web-based resource (http://www.lboro.ac.uk/microsites/lds/did/).

Keywords: digital industrial design; product design; digital design; practice-led; action research; digital sketching; haptic sketch modelling; product development; 3D printing; tactile form-giving.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPD.2015.069323

International Journal of Product Development, 2015 Vol.20 No.3, pp.239 - 263

Received: 04 Feb 2014
Accepted: 05 Sep 2014

Published online: 12 May 2015 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article