Digital styling for designers: Sketch emulation in computer environment

Abstract

The digitalization of product-styling tools for the early design-development stage has focused on using raster-type graphics S/Ws. These kinds of S/Ws enable designers freely to generate ideas, and enhance them based on their creativity and aesthetic senses. However, resultants from raster-type tools are no more than images, which are hardly converted to digital forms required by downstream processes. Thus, it still remains as an obstacle for both designers and engineers to work harmoniously and simultaneously in the new-product development process through concurrent engineering. This paper proposes a new digital-styling tool for designers by emulating a design sketch. The research process is summarized as: 1) observing designers' sketch behaviors and their works, 2) analyzing designers' sketch behavior patterns for extracting sketch elements, and 3) mapping them to digital forms. The proposed digital-sketch method not only allows designers to perform their creative work, but also provides digital connectivity for concurrent engineering. © Springer-Verlag 2003.