Sketching space

In this paper, we present a sketch modelling system which we call Stilton. The program resembles a desktop VRML browser, allowing a user to navigate a three-dimensional model in a perspective projection, or panoramic photographs, which the program maps onto the scene as a `floor' and `walls'. We place an imaginary two-dimensional drawing plane in front of the user, and any geometric information that user sketches onto this plane may be reconstructed to form solid objects through an optimization process. We show how the system can be used to reconstruct geometry from panoramic images, or to add new objects to an existing model. While panoramic imaging can greatly assist with some aspects of site familiarization and qualitative assessment of a site, without the addition of some foreground geometry they offer only limited utility in a design context. Therefore, we suggest that the system may be of use in `just-in-time' CAD recovery of complex environments, such as shop floors, or construction sites, by recovering objects through sketched overlays, where other methods such as automatic line-retrieval may be impossible. The result of using the system in this manner is the `sketching of space' - sketching out a volume around the user - and once the geometry has been recovered, the designer is free to quickly sketch design ideas into the newly constructed context, or analyze the space around them. Although end-user trials have not, as yet, been undertaken we believe that this implementation may afford a user-interface that is both accessible and robust, and that the rapid growth of pen-computing devices will further stimulate activity in this area

Methodology for Part Visualization Problem Solving - the Importance of the Process

Part visualization is a fundamental skill in engineering. It comprises the reading, interpretation and creation of industrial technical drawings, understanding the different views (multi-view) of an object/piece represented in any technical drawing. The ability to mentally visualize and manipulate objects and situations is an essential need in many jobs and careers. It is estimated that at least 84 majors consider visualization a fundamental need, and in technical jobs, many of them related to the different types of engineering, the ability to visualize has a crucial importance. Educators have often pointed out the difficulties of most students in graphic courses when trying to visualize an object using multi-view drawings. This is mainly due to the inexistence of a systematic process to analyze complex forms. A thorough review of the literature in technical drawing textbooks has not been successful in finding a clear, concise, and properly developed method of solving visualization problems by means of procedural contents. In collaboration with several experts and for the first time, a problem solving model for visualization has been designed and developed for all kind of industrial objects (Methodology for Part Visualization Problem Solving) within a constructivist didactic framework. This Problem Solving model is the key to all technical knowledge and is an application of the scientific method. In order to solve visualization problems in any kind of industrial object, comprehension indicators have been defined and a Teaching Unit has been developed with the help of dynamic images (power point and CAD files) as well as physical models. They may be applied by drawing up a programme of specific tasks which takes into account the theoretical contents and procedures involved in part visualization as well as the students\\u27 main difficulties and deficiencies when faced with this kind of problem. This teaching strategy has been applied over the last two years in the first year of Industrial Engineering at the Department of Engineering in Bilbao at the University of the Basque Country with good results

Exploiting hand sketching in educating 'mechanically oriented' engineering students

The financial support provided by the University of Malta through the research grant ‘Innovative 'Early Stage' Design Product Prototyping’ (IMERP02-01).It is well known that even though Computer-Aided Design (CAD) systems are available, sketching is still widely used in design synthesis. Mechanical engineering students must therefore be cultured and trained to exploit sketching during this crucial activity in the basic design cycle. However, in our years of experience in training such students we found a strong tendency that due to the overall knowledge transfer they receive, these future engineers tend to be oriented in mainly thinking and presenting details of their design solution. Whilst clearly design solutions need to be eventually described in detail for their successful realization, good detailed design solutions do not make up for poor solution concepts generated. In this paper, we therefore present the overall pedagogic approach adopted at the University of Malta in exploiting sketching both for expressing working principle solutions and also for early form design. In addition, this paper outlines how a prescribed sketching language was developed to enable co-located students to quickly express and exchange 3D CAD models of their sketches, all this helping in making 'global design' truly feasible even at the early design stages.peer-reviewe

Sketching to learn, learning to sketch: students' ways of sketching in architectural designing

Architects when sketching take time to pause, to look, to sketch, to look and sketch again. Described by some as the passing of an idea, a place or an experience from eye to mind to hand, the act of sketching is a means by which architects come to see and to understand the unfolding outcomes of their designing and make sense of aspects of the world. For many practitioners, scholars and eminent architects, sketching is fundamental to their architectural disposition and an integral part of thinking in an architectural way. To become architects, students need to learn this kind of sketching and few students in the early years of their studies are able to sketch in this way. Experience in teaching reveals architecture students are able to produce sketches, yet many struggle to grasp how to use their sketching as an integral part of their thinking and of progressing their designing. Far too rarely is using sketching an explicit focus of teaching and learning in the design studio. This research is directed towards understanding the different ways students are sketching when designing, on the basis that understanding these ways provides a useful and appropriate basis upon which to found improvements in teaching and learning about sketching in the design studio. Synergies between architectural sketching, visual thinking and how students learn, give rise to an investigation into the ways students are sketching, its approach, the form and collection of the data, the tools of analysis and means of interpretation founded on what is shared. The phenomenographic perspective on teaching and learning (Marton and Booth 1997) provides a means to analyse students' sketching, its iterative and interwoven cycles of considering, discovering and reinterpreting, suited to making sense of and seeing below the surface of the loose, searching and at times unclear design sketching. The analysis findings identify and describe differences in what and how students are sketching and are synthesized into a visual framework of 'palettes', describing three different and increasingly complex ways students are sketching. Using the descriptive framework in the studio offers students and teachers, through the understanding it depicts and the language it provides, opportunity to see, to make sense of, to compare, to complement, to improve and to discuss their own sketching and the sketching of others, and in so doing provides a means by which to help bring sketching into being an explicit focus of the day to day exchanges which lie at the core of learning in the design studio. Consideration is given to how teaching and learning in the studio might change were sketching to take this focus

Teaching sketching and its effect on the solutions produced by novice designers

Previous research by the authors showed that novice designers do not use sketching as a way to explore and communicate a design proposal, but move immediately to three-dimensional modelling. Neither do they generate multiple solutions. Furthermore, they lack the skills to readily explore their ideas and communicate them to others. The follow-up study described here addressed the questions: How can two-dimensional modelling be taught to students so they are better able to express their ideas? What is the relationship between the ability of a student to make two-dimensional models and the quality of design proposals? What specific skills, knowledge and materials are required for both teaching and learning sketching? Sixteen Year 7 students were divided into eight single-sex dyads. Four received instruction in freehand sketching. Four received no instruction and acted as a control group. The eight dyads were videotaped while producing a solution to a common design brief. Analysis of the data has provided insights into the effects of instruction on the proposals produced by students, as well as feedback on the efficacy of a set of materials for teaching sketching

Sketching to learn, learning to sketch: students' ways of sketching in architectural designing

Architects when sketching take time to pause, to look, to sketch, to look and sketch again. Described by some as the passing of an idea, a place or an experience from eye to mind to hand, the act of sketching is a means by which architects come to see and to understand the unfolding outcomes of their designing and make sense of aspects of the world. For many practitioners, scholars and eminent architects, sketching is fundamental to their architectural disposition and an integral part of thinking in an architectural way. To become architects, students need to learn this kind of sketching and few students in the early years of their studies are able to sketch in this way. Experience in teaching reveals architecture students are able to produce sketches, yet many struggle to grasp how to use their sketching as an integral part of their thinking and of progressing their designing. Far too rarely is using sketching an explicit focus of teaching and learning in the design studio. This research is directed towards understanding the different ways students are sketching when designing, on the basis that understanding these ways provides a useful and appropriate basis upon which to found improvements in teaching and learning about sketching in the design studio. Synergies between architectural sketching, visual thinking and how students learn, give rise to an investigation into the ways students are sketching, its approach, the form and collection of the data, the tools of analysis and means of interpretation founded on what is shared. The phenomenographic perspective on teaching and learning (Marton and Booth 1997) provides a means to analyse students' sketching, its iterative and interwoven cycles of considering, discovering and reinterpreting, suited to making sense of and seeing below the surface of the loose, searching and at times unclear design sketching. The analysis findings identify and describe differences in what and how students are sketching and are synthesized into a visual framework of 'palettes', describing three different and increasingly complex ways students are sketching. Using the descriptive framework in the studio offers students and teachers, through the understanding it depicts and the language it provides, opportunity to see, to make sense of, to compare, to complement, to improve and to discuss their own sketching and the sketching of others, and in so doing provides a means by which to help bring sketching into being an explicit focus of the day to day exchanges which lie at the core of learning in the design studio. Consideration is given to how teaching and learning in the studio might change were sketching to take this focus

IDATER online conference: graphicacy and modelling 2010

IDATER online conference: graphicacy and modelling 201