Generic Shape Grammars for Mass Customization of Ceramic Tableware

Abstract

Research is currently being developed on mass customization of ceramic tableware. The objective of this research is to allow end users to personalize their tableware sets, namely to determine the shape of its elements. The implementation of mass customization implies the articulation among three systems: design, production and computation. In this paper we will focus on the design system, which aims at two main goals: to help designers develop tableware collections, and to allow end users to customize these collections. The design system being developed controls the design of the elements of the tableware set in terms of their shape and decoration through the use of shape grammars and parametric modelling. The use of generic shape grammars is suggested as an effective way of handling a wide variety of tableware collections.