Aesthetic-driven tools for industrial design

The present paper describes an innovative approach in computer-aided industrial design: despite the availability of sophisticated modelling tools, there are still critical issues to be faced in order to provide creative users with functionality really suited to their mentality and able to support them in more easily attaining a model with a certain aesthetic and emotional character and in its preservation during the required model modifications. Currently, the adopted computer-aided design tools offer functionality mostly based on low-level geometric elements, while designers would like to act on properties more directly connected with their design intent. In order to understand which properties are important, we deeply analysed the process followed by designers and computer-aided design operators for achieving the desired product. The possible relationships between shape geometry and aesthetic character have been investigated and a software prototype has been developed to demonstrate the validity of the research outcomes. The presented work has been mainly developed within the framework of a Research and Development project supported by the European Commission, named FIORES-II, which involved. beside several research institutions from different European countries, a wide and direct participation of industrial application companies, such as Alessi, BMW, Pininfarina, Saab, Formtech and Eiger.