Using evolutionary design to interactively sketch car silhouettes and stimulate designer's creativity

TL;DR

This paper introduces an interactive genetic algorithm that uses Fourier decomposition and a similarity index to assist designers in sketching car profiles, aiming to enhance creativity and generate satisfactory designs.

Contribution

It presents a novel evolutionary design method with a specific crossover and similarity measure, improving interactive shape exploration for car silhouette design.

Findings

The method effectively stimulates designer creativity.

It produces more satisfactory car shapes than systematic exploration.

Designers' interpretations of attributes influence design diversity.

Abstract

An Interactive Genetic Algorithm is proposed to progressively sketch the desired side-view of a car profile. It adopts a Fourier decomposition of a 2D profile as the genotype, and proposes a cross-over mechanism. In addition, a formula function of two genes' discrepancies is fitted to the perceived dissimilarity between two car profiles. This similarity index is intensively used, throughout a series of user tests, to highlight the added value of the IGA compared to a systematic car shape exploration, to prove its ability to create superior satisfactory designs and to stimulate designer's creativity. These tests have involved six designers with a design goal defined by a semantic attribute. The results reveal that if "friendly" is diversely interpreted in terms of car shapes, "sportive" denotes a very conventional representation which may be a limitation for shape renewal.