A generative design technique for exploring shape variations

• Published in: Advanced engineering informatics 2018-10, Vol.38, p.712-724
• Main Authors: Khan, Shahroz, Awan, Muhammad Junaid
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Computer-aided design; Generative design; Jaya algorithm; Parametric design; Space-filling design
• ISSN: 1474-0346; 1873-5320
• DOI: 10.1016/j.aei.2018.10.005

•A new generative design technique for creation of aesthetic CAD designs.•The new technique has the ability to explore both continuous and discrete spaces.•Jaya optimization algorithm is utilized and modified to create optimal designs.•Different design space formulation approaches are presented. Because innovative and creative design is essential to a successful product, this work brings the benefits of generative design in the conceptual phase of the product development process so that designers/engineers can effectively explore and create ingenious designs and make better design decisions. We proposed a state-of-the-art generative design technique (GDT), called Space-filling-GDT (Sf-GDT), for the creation of innovative designs. The proposed Sf-GDT has the ability to create variant optimal design alternatives for a given computer-aided design (CAD) model. An effective GDT should generate design alternatives that cover the entire design space. Toward that end, the criterion of space-filling is utilized, which uniformly distribute designs in the design space thereby giving a designer a better understanding of possible design options. To avoid creating similar designs, a weighted-grid-search approach is developed and integrated into the Sf-GDT. One of the core contributions of this work lies in the ability of Sf-GDT to explore hybrid design spaces consisting of both continuous and discrete parameters either with or without geometric constraints. A parameter-free optimization technique, called Jaya algorithm, is integrated into the Sf-GDT to generate optimal designs. Three different design parameterization and space formulation strategies; explicit, interactive, and autonomous, are proposed to set up a promising search region(s) for optimization. Two user interfaces; a web-based and a Windows-based, are also developed to utilize Sf-GDT with the existing CAD software having parametric design abilities. Based on the experiments in this study, Sf-GDT can generate creative design alternatives for a given model and outperforms existing state-of-the-art techniques.