Aesthetic factors in geometric modelling

Abstract

CAD systems have traditionally catered for architectural and mechanical engineering designs which are somewhat constrained in scope. Problems concerning other types of design such as art design, industrial design or sculpting, where creativity and aesthetic factors play an important role, are not adequately addressed. These types of design require much more flexibility in both geometric modelling capability and user-machine interaction. This paper first gives a brief overview of recent work which deals with creative activities, and analyses important issues that need to be addressed in object representations for 3D creative activities. We then discuss a scheme to categorise and represent aesthetic factors in geometric modelling.