Title: Towards generative systems for supporting product design

Authors: Jia Cui; Ming Xi Tang

Addresses: School of Information Science and Engineering, Shandong Normal University, Jinan, Shandong Province, China ' School of Design, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hum, Kowloon, Hong Kong

Abstract: Various advanced computational, cognitive and innovative approaches have been developed in the last three decades to advance the fields of artificial intelligence and knowledge-based design systems. This paper reviews the development of generative design systems in the literature and of those developed by the author. It presents a framework of a generative design system with several real design examples. Finally, the paper examines the future direction for the advancement of generative design. A generative design system supports the generation and exploration of a large number of alternative design solutions, using automatic transformation algorithms of AI nature. It maintains a consistent style of all the explored solutions, but with design features and variables. It can also include an evaluation mechanism in the generative process for the system to search for the potentially optimum design solutions.

Keywords: generative design; design representation; design exploration; shape grammars.

DOI: 10.1504/IJDE.2017.085639

International Journal of Design Engineering, 2017 Vol.7 No.1, pp.1 - 16

Received: 03 May 2016
Accepted: 17 Mar 2017
Published online: 04 Aug 2017 *

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