System for 3D Form Generation and Impression Analysis Based on Emotional Words: “Kansei Words”

Appearance design is becoming an increasingly important factor for determining product value as well as product functions as customer preference continues to diversify, leading to growing demands for sophisticated designs. Current CAD systems are not effective for design because they lack functions to express the designer’s sensitivity (Kansei). In the first step of appearance design, the designer embodies the shape image from concepts. In this stage, if 3D models can be easily built and corrected based on KANSEI, the process of embodying the shape image becomes easy. In addition, product design must also reflect customer needs. The objective of this study is therefore to develop a design system that can construct and analyze 3D car models based on terms expressing “Kanse”. In this study, these terms are defined as “Kansei words”.