Global Feature Based Interactive Reduct Evolutional Computation for Aesthetic Design

In this paper, we verify the enhancement of IREC, which is a computer algorithm for interactive design support system, to support global design features as design attributes. IREC (Interactive Reduct Evolutional Computation) is a method to evolve designs based on users’ personal preferences. The method works through an interaction between the user and a computer system. The computer system with IREC generates design samples consisting of random attributes and the user evaluates and scores each samples depending on his/her psychological preferences. The system estimates the design attributes that the user pays more attention to (favored features) with reduct in Rough set theory and reflects it to generate new design samples. This interaction continues until the samples converge to a satisfactory design. So far design parameters such as coordinate of nodes for spline curve have been regarded as design attributes. However, design attributes consist of not only detailed local parameters but also global features such as convexity, softness etc. In earlier design process, designers first drew a rough sketch to determine the outline of a design, and designed the details later. Therefore it is important to introduce global features to accelerate the convergence and to increase user friendliness. We develop G-IREC (Global feature based IREC) which allows to introduce global features in IREC. This method is applied to design an automobile side-view shape model. The effectiveness of the method is demonstrated by comparing the results of the experiments carried out.