Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Engineering Sketching'

Thesis: Ph. D. in Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2018.
Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 131-144).
Often in computer science, graphs are used to represent metrics: the nodes represent "locations," and the edges represent connectivity between locations. The salient properties of such a graph are the shortest path distances between its nodes - that is, the minimum length of a path from each point A to each point B, capturing the time or resource cost of travelling from one place to another in the space represented by the graph. There are plenty of nice algorithms and structure theorems that are used to understand or analyze shortest path distances. However, in the modern computing, we sometimes have to handle spaces that are too enormous to be efficiently handled by these classic methods. When this happens, it is often useful to "sketch" these enormous spaces, designing a graph or data structure that approximately encodes the distances of the original network, but in much smaller space. This dissertation is about the design of these graph sketches that encode distances. Some of the content will cover upper bounds: we will demonstrate some new ways to make sketches, and we will prove things about the tradeoff between the size of these sketches and their approximation error. Some of the content will cover lower bounds: we will design some very particular graphs, and we will prove that a certain size vs error tradeoff can't be achieved any sketch on these graphs. We will do this for a few different reasonable notions of "approximation" of distances. We will also consider some of these settings in the fault-tolerant model, where we imagine that nodes or edges of the graph can spontaneously "fail," and we want our sketches to be strongly robust to these failures.
by Greg Bodwin.
Ph. D. in Computer Science

The process of musical composition is sometimes conceived of as an individual, internal, cognitive process in which notation plays a passive role of transmitting or recording musical ideas. This thesis questions the role played by representations in musical composition practices. We begin by tracing how, historically, compositional practices have co-evolved with musical representations and technologies for music production. We present case studies to show that the use of graphical sketches is a characteristic feature of the early stages of musical composition and that this practice recurs across musical genres ranging from classical music to contemporary electroacoustic composition. We describe the processes involved in sketching activities within the framework of distributed cognition and distinguish an intermediate representational role for sketches that is different from what is ‘in the head’ of the composer and from the functions of more formal musical notations. Using evidences from the case studies, we argue in particular that as in other creative design processes, sketches provide strategically ambiguous, heterogeneous forms of representation that exploit vagueness, indeterminacy and inconsistency in the development of musical ideas. Building on this analysis of the functions of sketching we describe the design and implementation of a new tool, the Music Sketcher, which attempts to provide more under-specified and flexible forms of ‘sketch’ representation than are possible with contemporary composition tools. This tool is evaluated through a series of case studies which explore how the representations constructed with the tool are interpreted and what role they play in the compositional process. We show that the program provides a similar level of vagueness to pen and paper, while also facilitating re-representation and re-interpretation, thus helping bridge the gap between early representations and later stages of commitment.

Thesis (M. Eng.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2005.
Includes bibliographical references (leaf 47).
Sketching, although deceptively simple and seemingly primitive, is a powerful paradigm for designing and understanding many types of engineering systems. Many problem domains, such as designing electrical circuits, developing flow charts, and modeling simple mechanical devices, rely heavily on the ability to produce sketches efficiently in order to bring out the most salient features. Engineers working in these domains usually rely on pen and paper to generate their design sketches. They do this because more advanced technologies (such as notebook computers) are often unavailable, hard to learn, or cumbersome. It is important for engineers to collaborate with their colleagues while working on their sketches. Unfortunately, collaboration on sketches that exist only as pen and paper often proves to be tedious, requiring a minimum of a fax machine and scanner. Engineers could benefit from a more efficient means of collaboration when dealing with pen and paper sketches. The technology exists to improve the current situation and make pen and paper sketches a more effective medium for collaborative design. This thesis presents an implementation of a system that achieves three goals. First, the system allows two users to collaborate on the production of a sketch in much the same way they would collaborate when composing a document (with one user composing a sketch, then accepting or rejecting the changes of his collaborator).
(cont.) Second, it allows users to watch a collaborator's additions play in real time, like watching a movie. And finally, it links the sketch recognition and simulation software developed by the Design Rationale Group at MIT with a simple pen and paper interface, allowing engineers to run simulations of their design sketches. These goals are achieved by using a commercial pen produced by the Anoto Group that is capable of storing the strokes it draws. In essence, the user creates both a hard and soft copy of the sketch simultaneously, and can share the soft copy with any collaborator. Using this model of production, sketches can be collaboratively generated, edited, and reviewed quickly and easily, all using only a pen, paper, and a standard printer.
by Jesse Michael Smithnosky.
M.Eng.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2011.
This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.
Cataloged from student submitted PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 136-145).
A sketch of a dataset is a small-space data structure supporting some prespecified set of queries (and possibly updates) while consuming space substantially sublinear in the space required to actually store all the data. Furthermore, it is often desirable, or required by the application, that the sketch itself be computable by a small-space algorithm given just one pass over the data, a so-called streaming algorithm. Sketching and streaming have found numerous applications in network traffic monitoring, data mining, trend detection, sensor networks, and databases. In this thesis, I describe several new contributions in the area of sketching and streaming algorithms. The first space-optimal streaming algorithm for the distinct elements problem. Our algorithm also achieves 0(1) update and reporting times. A streaming algorithm for Hamming norm estimation in the turnstile model which achieves the best known space complexity. The first space-optimal algorithm for pth moment estimation in turnstile streams for 0 < p < 2, with matching lower bounds, and another space-optimal algorithm which also has a fast O(log²(1/[epsilon]) log log(1[epsilon])) update time for (1+/-[epsilon])- approximation. A general reduction from empirical entropy estimation in turnstile streams to moment estimation, providing the only known near-optimal space-complexity upper bound for this problem. A proof of the Johnson-Lindenstrauss lemma where every matrix in the support of the embedding distribution is much sparser than previous known constructions. In particular, to achieve distortion (1+/-[epsilon]) with probability 1-[delta], we embed into optimal dimension 0([epsilon]-²log(1/[delta])) and such that every matrix in the support of the distribution has 0([epsilon]-¹ log(1/[delta])) non-zero entries per column.
by Jelani Nelson.
Ph.D.

Thesis: S.M., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2019
Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 41-43).
Given n positive integers, the Modular Subset Sum problem asks if a subset adds up to a given target t modulo a given integer m. This is a natural generalization of the Subset Sum problem (where m = + [infinity symbol]) with ties to additive combinatorics and cryptography. The non-modular case was long known to be NP-complete but to admit pseudo-polynomial time algorithms and, recently, algorithms running in near-linear pseudo-polynomial time were developed [9, 211. For the modular case, however, the best known algorithm by Koiliaris and Xu [21] runs in time 0̃ (m⁵/⁴). In this thesis we tackle this problem by devising a faster algorithm for the Modular Subset Sum problem, running in 0̃(m) randomized time, which matches a recent conditional lower bound of [1] based on the Strong Exponential Time Hypothesis. Interestingly, in contrast to most previous results on Subset Sum, our algorithm does not use the Fast Fourier Transform. Instead, it is able to simulate the "textbook" Dynamic Programming algorithm much faster, using ideas from linear sketching. This is one of the first applications of sketching-based techniques to obtain fast algorithms for exact combinatorial problems in an offline setting.
by Kyriakos Axiotis.
S.M.
S.M. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Thesis (M.S.) -- University of Maryland, College Park, 2008.
Thesis research directed by: Dept. of Mechanical Engineering. Title from t.p. of PDF. Includes bibliographical references. Published by UMI Dissertation Services, Ann Arbor, Mich. Also available in paper.

Thesis: Ph. D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2017.
This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.
Cataloged from student-submitted PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 241-255).
We study two fundamental problems that involve massive high-dimensional datasets: approximate near neighbor search (ANN) and sketching. We obtain a number of new results including: ' An algorithm for the ANN problem over the ℓ₁ and ℓ₂ distances that, for the first time, improves upon the Locality-Sensitive Hashing (LSH) framework. The key new insight is to use random space partitions that depend on the dataset. ' An implementation of the core component of the above algorithm, which is released as FALCONN: a new C++ library for high-dimensional similarity search. ' An efficient algorithm for the ANN problem over any distance that can be expressed as a symmetric norm. ' For norms, we establish the equivalence between the existence of short and accurate sketches and good embeddings into ℓp spaces for 0 < p by Ilya Razenshteyn.
Ph. D.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 1999.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 76-77).
Computers should be able to assist an engineer or designer at all stages of design without chasing the engineer away or frustrating her. In order for this to occur, the computer needs to be able to understand what the engineer is doing and provide unobtrusive help. Furthermore the engineer needs to be able to interact with the computer in a natural manner. To support this design methodology I implement a foundation on which a programmer can make such applications. I provide two illustrative applications which demonstrate the foundation's power.
by Luke Weisman.
S.M.

Thesis: S.M., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2019
Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 57-65).
Researchers are generating single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) profiles of diverse biological systems [1]-[7] and every cell type in the human body [8] at an unprecedented scale, with scRNA-seq experiments regularly profiling gene expression in hundreds of thousands or even millions of cells [9]. Leveraging this data to gain unprecedented insight into biology and disease requires algorithms that can scale to the tremendous amount of data being generated and can integrate information across multiple experiments, laboratories, and technologies. Here, we present two algorithms that aim to aid researchers in gaining better insight from scRNA-seq data sets. The first, Scanorama, inspired by algorithms for panorama stitching, achieves accurate integration of heterogeneous scRNA-seq data sets, which we use to integrate a number of large and complex collections of data sets. The second algorithm, geometric sketching, is a sampling approach that aims to evenly cover the low-dimensional manifold spanned by the cells to capture more of the rare transcriptional structure than would uniform subsampling with equal probability for each cell, obtaining sketches that better capture the transcriptional heterogeneity of the original data. Moreover, geometric sketching can be used to improve the computational efficiency of algorithms for single-cell integration, including Scanorama. We anticipate that both algorithms will play an important role in the analysis and interpretation of large-scale single-cell transcriptomic data sets.
by Brian Hie.
S.M.
S.M. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Thesis (S.B.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, 2009.
"June 2009." Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 23).
Design notebooks, or logbooks, are typically used to record notes during the design process. These notes consist of text entries as well as sketches with varying levels of detail. Previous research on the design process has focused on sketches, including their effect on design outcome, differences based on prior sketching experience, and more. This paper looks at the interplay between text entries and sketches in design notebooks, and analyzes patterns that appear over the course of the design process. Data collected from eighteen logbooks from the class Design-a-palooza shows that trends exist between writings and drawings in the design process. The results of analysis of this data show that the number of sketches in a logbook increases following drawing instruction, and the design process typically starts with more text entries in logbooks, including customer needs research, followed by this increased number of sketches and then a decrease in all entries as prototyping occurs. The analysis was inconclusive in determining if students who write more ideas with text will sketch fewer ideas, as well as the relationship between partners' logbook entries. Recommendations for future research in these areas of design research are presented.
by Rebecca A. Smith.
S.B.

Thesis (M.Eng.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2003.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 203-205).
This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.
by Aaron D. Adler.
M.Eng.

Analysis and visualization of large data sets is time consuming and sometimes can be a very difficult process, especially for 3D data sets. Therefore, data processing and visualization techniques have often been used in the case of different massive data analysis for efficiency and accuracy purposes. This thesis presents a multi-scale data sketching solution, specifically for large 3D scientific data with a goal to support collaborative data management, analysis and visualization. The idea is to allow users to quickly identify interesting regions and observe significant patterns without directly accessing the raw data, since most of the information in raw form is not useful. This solution will provide a fast way to allow the users to choose the regions they are interested and save time. By preprocessing the data, our solution can sketch out the general regions of the 3D data, and users can decide whether they are interested in going further to analyze the current data. The key issue is to find efficient and accurate algorithms to detect boundaries or regions information for large 3D scientific data. Specific techniques and performance analysis are also discussed.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2000.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 103-104).
by Christine J. Alvarado.
S.M.

This thesis is an explorative, design-based research study towards the expressive potential of using actuators as design materials. Over three distinct phases of experimentation –all with their own particular aim– various sketches are developed that showcase different expressive qualities. These sketches consist of a variety of kitchen devices that are expanded with actuators. These actuators do not necessarily add to the functionality of the device, but rather to its expressiveness. The development of and reasoning for the sketches is clarified in an extensive way to clearly present all the insights that are gained throughout the design process. In the end, the sketches are discussed and reflected upon on the basis of the process-insights and relevant design theories.

Comics have been around for centuries and have had different culturalmeanings depending on era, genre and country. Toward the end of the 20thcentury and the start of the 21st century, we experienced the rise of theinternet as well as the normalization of home computers and with that,comics also started inhabiting the digital space. The digital space opens upfor opportunities of multimedia and new ways of interacting with comics, butmost comics maintain the formats of their printed counterparts.The goal of this thesis is to contribute knowledge to both interaction designpractice as well as digital comics. This is done by conducting research throughdesign and interaction-driven design and through them, launch anexploration into how different interactions affect the experience of reading.User tests as well as a workshop was conducted in order to help articulate theexperience. The conclusions reached were that a more active way ofinteracting (i.e. scrolling for instance) appeared to be preferable to othermore static ways of interacting. The usage of the digital space appeared to insome cases enhance the experience of reading but it was closely connected tothe nature of the interactions.

Due to its economic importance engineering design as a creative design problem solving has been the research subject of psychologists and design engineers for several years. Observations of designer's thinking and action processes show that especially in the early stages of the design process, in which requirements are clarified and ideas are developed, generating solutions is largely associated with the use of simple external representations such as sketches and material (physical) models. In the represented thesis the use and functions of such external aids were investigated at first with a questionnaire study consulting designers (N = 106) of different industries. The results demonstrate the dominance of sketches as well as the increasing use of CAD already in the early stages of product development. In contrast models are applied to a lesser extent. Thereby simple external aids are not only used as memory-relieving external information storages, but do also support solution development and testing, serve as an analysis aid and contribute helpfully to documentation and communication. Further in an experimental study the use and functions of sketching and manual modelling applied by engineering students and designers (N = 61) while working on two design problems of different complexity with free choice of the support form were analysed. The results verify the essential importance of sketching for the design process, since almost all subjects used sketches to deal with the two design problems, while material models were hardly applied. Again the sketches fulfil different functions, so besides documentation they mainly support solution development. These statement based findings that sketches in addition to their function as external storages for memory relief serve also as thinking aids, thus support the generating and further developing of solution concepts, could be confirmed by observation data based on the analysis of the individual design processes. Finally recommendations for the design of new and advanced computer-assisted design aids could be given
Das Konstruieren als schöpferisch-entwerfendes Problemlösen (design problem solving) ist aufgrund seiner wirtschaftlichen Bedeutung seit längerem Gegenstand der Forschung von Psychologen und Konstruktionswissenschaftlern. Beobachtungen des Vorgehens des Konstrukteurs zeigen, daß insbesondere in den frühen Phasen des konstruktiven Entwurfsprozesses, in denen Anforderungen geklärt und Ideen generiert werden, die Lösungsentwicklung in hohem Maße durch einfache externe Hilfsmittel, wie Skizzen und gegenständliche Modelle, unterstützt wird. In der dargestellten Dissertation wurde Einsatz und Nutzen dieser Hilfsmittel zunächst anhand einer Befragung von Konstrukteuren (N = 106) verschiedener Branchen untersucht. Die Ergebnisse belegen die Dominanz von Skizzen sowie die Zunahme der Nutzung von CAD bereits in den frühen Phasen der Produktentwicklung. Modelle finden dagegen weniger häufig Verwendung. Einfache externe Hilfsmittel werden dabei nicht nur als gedächtnisentlastende externe Speicher eingesetzt, sondern unterstützen ebenso die Lösungsentwicklung und -überprüfung, dienen als Analysehilfe und tragen hilfreich zur Dokumentation und Kommunikation bei. Weiterhin wurde in einer experimentellen Studie der Einsatz und die Funktionen des Skizzierens und manuellen Modellierens bei der Bearbeitung zweier Konstruktionsprobleme unterschiedlicher Komplexität durch Maschinenbaustudenten und Konstrukteure (N = 61) bei freier Wahl der Unterstützungsform näher untersucht. Die Ergebnisse verifizieren die essentielle Bedeutung des Skizzierens für den konstruktiven Entwurfsprozeß, da nahezu alle Probanden die beiden Konstruktionsprobleme von Anfang an skizzierend bearbeiteten, während einfache Modelle so gut wie gar nicht eingesetzt wurden. Die Skizzen erfüllten wiederum verschiedene Funktionen, neben der Dokumentation wurden sie v.a. zur Lösungsentwicklung verwendet. Dabei konnten diese auf Aussagen beruhenden Erkenntnisse, daß Skizzen neben der Gedächtnisentlastung auch eine Denkhilfe bieten, durch aus der Analyse der Entwurfsprozesse gewonnene Beobachtungsdaten bestätigt werden. Abschließend wurden Gestaltungsempfehlungen für die Neu- und Weiterentwicklung computergestützter Hilfsmittel des konstruktiven Entwurfsprozesses formuliert

„Sketching the world“ bedeutet entwerfen von Welt mittels analogen und digitalen Zeichenmitteln - auch in Zukunft benötigt es dafür im Design Engineering der Künstlichen Intelligenz (KI) und der Emotionalen Intelligenz (EQ – nach Daniel Goleman). Zeichnen ist Kulturgut seit der Steinzeit und ist für die kulturelle Bildung als auch für das Design Engineering der Zukunft von großer Bedeutung. Zeichnen-Erfahrungen, sei es mit dem Stock im Sand oder mit dem Stift auf Papier, beginnt in der Primarbildung: Bereits hier ist es als Kulturtechnik essentiell für die Gesellschaft, indem der aktive Akt des Zeichnens Selbstausdruck und kulturelles Gedächtnis, Signifikat ist. Zeichnen ist individuelles und kollektives Wissens- und Bildungsmanagement für die Welt von morgen und muss in der Primabildung früh – multidisziplinär – verankert sein, soll es im Skizzieren, im Mapping, als Repräsentation und Projektion wirkungsvoll für das Design Engineering in Europa, auch in der Augmented Reality, eingesetzt werden.

Due to its economic importance engineering design as a creative design problem solving has been the research subject of psychologists and design engineers for several years. Observations of designer's thinking and action processes show that especially in the early stages of the design process, in which requirements are clarified and ideas are developed, generating solutions is largely associated with the use of simple external representations such as sketches and material (physical) models. In the represented thesis the use and functions of such external aids were investigated at first with a questionnaire study consulting designers (N = 106) of different industries. The results demonstrate the dominance of sketches as well as the increasing use of CAD already in the early stages of product development. In contrast models are applied to a lesser extent. Thereby simple external aids are not only used as memory-relieving external information storages, but do also support solution development and testing, serve as an analysis aid and contribute helpfully to documentation and communication. Further in an experimental study the use and functions of sketching and manual modelling applied by engineering students and designers (N = 61) while working on two design problems of different complexity with free choice of the support form were analysed. The results verify the essential importance of sketching for the design process, since almost all subjects used sketches to deal with the two design problems, while material models were hardly applied. Again the sketches fulfil different functions, so besides documentation they mainly support solution development. These statement based findings that sketches in addition to their function as external storages for memory relief serve also as thinking aids, thus support the generating and further developing of solution concepts, could be confirmed by observation data based on the analysis of the individual design processes. Finally recommendations for the design of new and advanced computer-assisted design aids could be given.
Das Konstruieren als schöpferisch-entwerfendes Problemlösen (design problem solving) ist aufgrund seiner wirtschaftlichen Bedeutung seit längerem Gegenstand der Forschung von Psychologen und Konstruktionswissenschaftlern. Beobachtungen des Vorgehens des Konstrukteurs zeigen, daß insbesondere in den frühen Phasen des konstruktiven Entwurfsprozesses, in denen Anforderungen geklärt und Ideen generiert werden, die Lösungsentwicklung in hohem Maße durch einfache externe Hilfsmittel, wie Skizzen und gegenständliche Modelle, unterstützt wird. In der dargestellten Dissertation wurde Einsatz und Nutzen dieser Hilfsmittel zunächst anhand einer Befragung von Konstrukteuren (N = 106) verschiedener Branchen untersucht. Die Ergebnisse belegen die Dominanz von Skizzen sowie die Zunahme der Nutzung von CAD bereits in den frühen Phasen der Produktentwicklung. Modelle finden dagegen weniger häufig Verwendung. Einfache externe Hilfsmittel werden dabei nicht nur als gedächtnisentlastende externe Speicher eingesetzt, sondern unterstützen ebenso die Lösungsentwicklung und -überprüfung, dienen als Analysehilfe und tragen hilfreich zur Dokumentation und Kommunikation bei. Weiterhin wurde in einer experimentellen Studie der Einsatz und die Funktionen des Skizzierens und manuellen Modellierens bei der Bearbeitung zweier Konstruktionsprobleme unterschiedlicher Komplexität durch Maschinenbaustudenten und Konstrukteure (N = 61) bei freier Wahl der Unterstützungsform näher untersucht. Die Ergebnisse verifizieren die essentielle Bedeutung des Skizzierens für den konstruktiven Entwurfsprozeß, da nahezu alle Probanden die beiden Konstruktionsprobleme von Anfang an skizzierend bearbeiteten, während einfache Modelle so gut wie gar nicht eingesetzt wurden. Die Skizzen erfüllten wiederum verschiedene Funktionen, neben der Dokumentation wurden sie v.a. zur Lösungsentwicklung verwendet. Dabei konnten diese auf Aussagen beruhenden Erkenntnisse, daß Skizzen neben der Gedächtnisentlastung auch eine Denkhilfe bieten, durch aus der Analyse der Entwurfsprozesse gewonnene Beobachtungsdaten bestätigt werden. Abschließend wurden Gestaltungsempfehlungen für die Neu- und Weiterentwicklung computergestützter Hilfsmittel des konstruktiven Entwurfsprozesses formuliert.

En designer menar att kommunicera sina idéer genom illustrerande plaggskisser till andra involverade i företaget. Idéerna är vaga, detaljrika, provisoriska eller abstrakta. Att tolka någonting som saknar precision är en osäkerhet, dessutom kan feltolkningar av skisser skapa stora kommunikationsproblem inom ett designteam. Genom att utföra semistrukturerade intervjuer och deltagande observationer hos modeföretag i Sverige har kvalitativt material jämförts med den litteratur och de studier som finns om ämnet idag. Från de studier och artiklar som refereras till i detta arbetet har olika riktningar uppenbarats, som kan vara goda att undersöka i ämnet. Däribland behovet av att skapa meta-notationer, nämligen ett skriftligt system som diskuterar kommunikationen i designprocessen. Ett antal flödeskartor har även ritats upp, utifrån observationer av gruppdynamik, företagsstruktur, beteendemönster, samt intervjufrågor med olika roller i designteamen.
A designer believes that communicating their ideas through illustrative garment sketches to others involved in the company. The ideas are vague, detailed, provisional or abstract. Interpreting something that lacks precision is an uncertainty; furthermore, misinterpretation of sketches can create great communication problems with design teams. By conducting semi-structured interviews and having participatory observations at fashion companies in Sweden, qualitative material has been compared to the literature and studies available on the subject today. From the studies and articles referred to in this work, different directions have been revealed, which may be good to investigate on the subject. This includes the need to create meta-notations, namely a written system that discusses the communication in the design process. A number of flow charts have thus been drawn up, based on observations on tone, gestures and mimics, as well as interview questions with different roles in the design teams.

Vor dem Hintergrund empirischer Befunde zur Nutzung von CAD-Systemen beim konstruktiven Entwerfen in der Ausbildung sowie der Berufspraxis wird in der vorliegenden Arbeit über eine Befragungsstudie sowie eine laborexperimentelle Studie zur Bewertung des Unterstützungspotentials verschiedenartiger Arbeitsmittel in den frühen Phasen des Entwerfens von technischen Gebilden berichtet. Zu den beim Entwerfen eingesetzten Arbeitsmitteln zählen neben einfachen, aufwandsarmen Werkzeugen wie Papier und Bleistift auch computerisierte Automaten wie z. B. CAD-Systeme. CAD-Systeme sind durch die bereitgestellten Funktionalitäten heutzutage ein wesentliches Arbeitsmittel für den Konstrukteur; die für die außerordentlich komplexen, kostenbestimmenden frühen Entwurfsphasen wichtigen Funktionen werden aber offenbar nur in unzureichendem Maße oder überhaupt nicht zur Verfügung gestellt. Dadurch notwendige Wechsel zwischen analogen und digitalen Arbeitsmitteln müssen bislang manuell durchgeführt werden und haben neben zeitlichen Einbußen in der Regel Fehler und Informationsverluste bei der Übertragung zur Folge. Mit dem LCD-Monitor mit integriertem Graphiktablett WACOM Cintiq 15X, dessen Bedienung sich an den Eigenschaften herkömmlicher Handskizzen orientiert, wird eine durchgängige Nutzung von CAD-Systemen angestrebt. Zunächst wurden diese drei Arbeitsmittel hinsichtlich Ihrer Anforderungen an den Nutzer bei einem Einsatz in den frühen Entwurfsphasen aus tätigkeitspsychologischer Sicht analysiert. In der experimentellen Hauptuntersuchung bearbeiteten drei Versuchsgruppen einer Stichprobe von 66 Studierenden einer ingenieurtechnischen Fakultät dasselbe wissensreiche, praxisnahe Entwurfsproblem unter den experimentellen Bedingungen der Entwurfsentwicklung durch Freihandskizzieren mit Papier und Bleistift, mit digitalem Graphiktablett oder mit Hilfe des Rechnerprogramms AutoCAD. Es erfolgte eine differenzierte Betrachtung des Einflusses dieser verschiedenartigen Arbeitsmittel auf unterschiedliche Variablen der Bereiche ?Ergebnisse?, ?Erleben? und ?Prozess?. Im Ergebnis der Analysen konnte weitestgehend hypothesenkonform gezeigt werden, dass Freihandskizzieren - unabhängig vom Arbeitsmittel - dem Entwerfen mittels CAD in allen betrachteten effektivitäts- und effizienzbestimmenden Kriterien überlegen war. Prozessorientierte Analysen des äußeren Handlungsablaufes sowie handlungsbegleitender mentaler Prozesse gaben erste Hinweise auf mögliche Ursachen dieser Befunde aus handlungspsychologischer Sicht. Dazu war eine Untersuchungsmethodik entwickelt worden, die es erlaubt, begründet auf den ?inneren Verlauf? des Entwerfens zu schließen. Die Ergebnisse konnten in einem weiteren Schritt an einer Problemstellung mit vergleichbarem Schwierigkeitsgrad weitgehend repliziert werden. Aus den Analysen und Resultaten wurden Schlussfolgerungen für die Konstruktionsausbildung und die Gestaltung digitaler Unterstützungssysteme abgeleitet
Due to its economic importance, engineering design as a demanding and complex problem-solving activity has been the subject of interdisciplinary research of both psychologists and design scientists for several years. In particular, the early stages of problem clarification and conceptual design are of significant interest. The design process can be supported in several different ways, e. g. with simple low-expenditure sketches. Today, high-performance digital tools (e. g. CAD) have become indispensable in product development. But their characteristics hypothetically result in an additional workload of mental capacity and hinder the full and correct establishment of necessary mental problem representations. So design engineers often combine sketches and CAD. In order to avoid a loss of time and information when switching between the different media, the functions of sketches should be implemented into CAD. An approach to realise this is the interactive pen display WACOM Cintiq 15X, which claims to have the same characteristics as paper &amp; pencil together with differing kinds of computer functionalities. Its effectiveness and efficiency has not yet been investigated. This study focuses on the comparison of the three media ?paper &amp; pencil?, ?pen display? and ?AutoCAD? in the early stages of the design process. On the basis of the psychological demands on the user, support potential was analysed by recording variables concerning the results, the subjective experience and the process. The sample was composed of 66 students of the mechanical engineering graduate program at the Dresden University of Technology. Random sampling resulted in three subsamples of 22 subjects each. The research was carried out in a laboratory experimental study, where people work alone on a given design scenario. No significant differences could be found between the two groups designing by freehandsketching with paper &amp; pencil and with pen display. This speaks well for comparable demands of these two media on the user. Subjects who designed with AutoCAD produced solutions with a significant lower quality and communication of the technical information content. They needed significantly more time to develop the solution. These results can be regarded as evidence of the hypothetically discussed demands on the user: current CAD-systems do not take cognitive abilities and limitations into consideration sufficiently as well as ways of intuitive and effort-saving externalisation. Results could be replicated extensively in a study with a design problem of equally difficult requirement structure. Finally, hints for education of engineering design students and essential requirements for digital support tools in the early stages of the design process were derived

Seating is an integral part of work environment. When people are at work, they often sit in chairs for long periods of time without changing postures. This results in reduced blood circulation in the body, especially in the buttock-thigh area causing muscle fatigue, pain and discomfort. Ergonomically designed task chairs adopt a passive approach to guiding people into better postures by providing adjustability inside the chair. However most people do not adjust their chairs because they fail to sense the need for changing posture. They are left to sensing the need to change posture through guesswork or extreme discomfort. This thesis proposes a new system to address this problem by sensing static posture in a seated person with the use of electronic sensors embedded in the seat, and by providing interactive feedback to static posture via sound, light and tactile channels. The new technology is an sensing-feedback mechanism embedded in a chair, that allows people to receive postural information and make body adjustments periodically to avoid pain and discomfort caused by prolonged seating.The feedback mechanism was tested with four subjects to determine its efficacy in generating posture change through pressure relief and user feedback was gathered in order to design the final prototype.

In the article Language of Lighting, Schielke (2019) states creation of visual material as the most efficient way to reproduce design related solutions. According to Self (2018), to fully summarize a lighting solution in words prove to be insufficient when the receiver of the information is not able to visualize the results of the design. Progress has been made in understanding how visualizations are used as a driving force to mediate solutions, although knowledge of the everyday usage is still deficient. The purpose of the study is to examine the use of visualizations in the lighting industry, through the process of architectural lighting projects. To understand the importance of visual material and the implemented tools used to create these, the study is based on the experience of seven active consults and project leaders in the business of lighting and architecture. By applying qualitative interviews, a collection of empirical data could be sampled and analyzed to answer the two research questions of this study, which focuses on techniques used for visualizing lighting concepts and the basis for the choices of techniques. The results clearly suggest that the execution of visualizations depends strongly on available resources. However, the respondents stated they were rarely involved in projects where sketching has been done by hand and instead referred to digital software products as a more valuable medium. Presenting well elaborated visualizations has been recognized as one of the most efficient ways to persuade the costumer, as well as including elements beyond lighting that is of importance for each individual costumer. However, this aspect should be considered cautiously since it tends to create false representations of the final results.  Although several aspects are of great significance in the process of creating visualizations to represent the chosen project, all the respondents agreed that a communication between the client and other parts involved are crucial for a project to be successful. To avoid unappreciated consulting hours, responsible designers need to understand demands and desires of the client and produce the amount of visual material necessary – leading back to the importance of communication.
I artikeln Language of Lighting skriver Schielke (2019) att visuell representation står som det mest effektiva tillvägagångssättet för att presentera designrelaterade lösningar. Enligt Self (2018) innebär belysning ofta stora svårigheter när lösningar förmedlas verbalt, då mottagaren sällan besitter förmågan att kunna bilda sig en tydlig bild av designvalen. Framsteg har gjorts kring användandet av belysningsrelaterade visualiseringar även om kunskaper kring vardagligt användande är begränsade. Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka användandet av visualiseringar ute bland belysningsföretag i branschen och hur dessa implementeras i designprojekt. Erfarenheter har samlats från sju konsulter och projektledare, med bakgrund inom ljusdesign och arkitektur, för att bättre förstå vikten av visuellt material samt de verktyg som används för att framställa dem. Genom användandet av kvalitativa intervjuer har empiriska data kunnat utvinnas och analyseras för att svara på studiens två frågeställningar som fokuserar på tekniker som används vid visualisering av belysningskoncept samt vad val av teknik baseras på.  Resultaten antyder att skapandet av visualiseringar delvis beror på tillgängliga resurser. Handritade skisser används sällan då digitala verktyg anses vara mer användbara och värdefulla vid projektering. Genomarbetade visualiseringar förekommer alltmer och ses nu som ett av de mest effektiva sätten att sälja in projektidéer till beställare. Visualiseringar gör det även möjligt att inkludera designelement bortom belysning vilket också kan vara av kundintresse och säljande faktor. Det är dock viktigt med aktsamhet för att inte ge en missvisande representation av det slutliga resultatet. Även om aspekterna för att producera genomtänkta och tydliga visualiseringar är många kunde samtliga deltagare enas om att strategin bakom ett framgångsrikt projekt ligger i att upprätthålla god kommunikation, både med kund och samtliga övriga involverade parter. För att undvika för många arbetstimmar gäller det även att designers är medvetna om kundens önskemål och att krav på visuellt material motsvarar behovet – vilket leder tillbaka till vikten av god kommunikation.

The objective of this project is to understand how information design– specifically informative illustration– can contribute to producing concept sketches for a science-fiction/puzzle game called Sky’s Edge. Through theoretical studies and research methods, I aimed to deepen my understanding of what makes a concept image a good one, and from that, I aimed to determine how informative illustration can help in designing and sketching the ideas that the job requester needed. The conducted theoretical studies indicated that a good concept image is one that contains ideas which are easily understood/communicated, can inspire the team, and in turn generate further discussion. They also revealed the vast advantages of thumbnail sketching– which can lead to the development of stronger ideas and compositions. Refined sketches and drawings are produced thereafter to present these ideas to the development team. The purpose of the resulting collection of concept images was to unify the visual direction of the team responsible for developing the game.

Game sketching is used to identify enjoyable designs for digital games without the expense of fully implementing them. This thesis presents Raptor, a novel tool for sketching games. Raptor shows how tabletop interaction can effectively support the ideation phase of interaction design by permitting small collocated groups to participate in the design and testing process together. Raptor relies heavily on efficient gesture-based interaction, mixed-reality interaction involving physical props and digital artifacts, Wizard-of-Oz demonstration gameplay sketching, and fluid change of roles between designer and tester. An evaluation of Raptor using seven groups of three people showed that a sketching tool based on a tabletop computer indeed supports ideation and collaboration among collocated groups better than a more traditional PC-based tool.
Thesis (Ph.D, Computing) -- Queen's University, 2009-08-12 14:06:34.363

The traditional pen-paper sketching is extensively used in the early stages of product design as it supports creative exploration of product concepts and provides a fluidic mode for the expression of ideas. The Computer Aided Design (CAD) models support the later stages of design and manufacturing process. Faithful conversion of the designer’s ideas from concept sketches to the CAD models is a skill intensive and time consuming exercise which reduces the overall productivity of the organization. Providing computer based support can help the designer, in several ways, by reducing demand on the skill and allow focusing more on creative exploration of the concepts. Towards that, the thesis presents methodologies to understand the product concept sketches, support cognitive activities like perceiving the composition and behaviour, and create and interact with the sketches, directly in 3D. To begin with, traditional 2D sketches of product concepts are studied mainly to explores the psychological (cognitive) and physiological (musculoskeletal) activities of the designer in the context of the product being designed. A sketching application is created for capturing the sketches created using a tablet in digitized form. The captured data is analyzed based on the identified parameters. A grouping methodology is devised to group the stroke based on the observations which are akin to Gestalt laws of perceptual organization. This functional grouping or segmentation is used to identify the mental model of the product concept and the design rationale behind it. In concept sketches, annotations carry information like behaviour, functionality and usage. These wishful declarations need to be verified through simulation! To simulate the behavior of the components identified by the functional segmentation method, a kinematic model is defined where the designers interactively describe the constituents like joints, fixed links, inputs, etc. The interactive simulation changes the underlying kinematic model and makes the sketches to move to show the behavior. This system also provides methods to verify boundary constraints and allows creating patterns. Traditional 2D sketching suffers from several deficiencies. To overcome these, a novel direct 3D sketching methodology is proposed with stereo vision and haptic feedback. Different types of strokes creations like curves, strips and sweep surfaces, directly in 3D space, are demonstrated. Further, to provide control over stroke creation process, visual and haptic feedbacks are studied. Haptic rendering schemes for stroke generation are explored based on mechanics of sketching. Using the curve generation methods, surface generation schemes are devised. Mainly two types of schemes are explored (a) sweep surface and (b) Hatching surfaces. To support constrained concept exploration, two types of haptic constraints are modeled and their application is demonstrated in constraining a sketch within a boundary and outside a boundary. Motion constraints are implemented by simulating the behaviour of identified components’ motions. Two types of motion are implemented (a) Linear translation and (b) Rotation about an axis. Finally, a sketch based distributed collaboration method is presented to enable design interaction in the context of global product development. Several issues related to the realization of a sketch based collaborative conceptual design system are explored and, one such instance is demonstrated through experiments.

This thesis is an article-based (3-paper format) dissertation. In the first article, the research team adapted an input-process-outcome (IPO) model of group-level processes in the classroom, as a theoretical framework, to examine students’ experiences regarding pre-college engineering curricula, classroom environments, and their experiences with the creative process in the two engineering courses offered in a university-based summer enrichment program. Applying provisional and open coding to semi-structured interview data from 16 participants, an Input-Process-Outcome Model of Collaborative Creativity (IPOCC model) was developed. In this study, I grouped our findings under Inputs, Group Processes, Outcomes, and Mediating Factors. The IPOCC model expands the 4P model of creativity to incorporate more collaborative contexts. According to the 4P model, creativity can be viewed from four different perspectives: Person, Process, Product, and Press. The IPOCC model suggests that in K-12 collaborative practice, creativity involves group-level considerations in addition to individual-level components. The IPOCC model offer insights for educators in terms of input components, group processes, and mediating factors that can facilitate learners’ engagement in creative teamwork. Findings of this study indicated that a combination of challenging tasks, open-ended problems, and student teamwork provides a rich environment for learners’ engagement to think creatively.

The purpose of the second study was to systematically investigate how novice/K-12 students’ visual representation of design ideas has been operationalized, measured, or assessed in the research literature. In the different phases of screening in this systematic review, inclusion, exclusion, and quality criteria were applied. From an initial sample of 958 articles, 40 studies were included in the final step of the coding process and qualitative synthesis. Applying provisional and open coding, three broad themes, and 23 characteristics were identified that have been used by researchers to conceptualize sketching of ideas, in novice/K-12 design activities: Communicating Ideas, Visual-Spatial Characteristics, and Design Creativity. We propose this Three-pronged Design Sketching (3-pDS) framework to examine K-12 design sketches.

In K-12 settings, one major challenge of conducting research on the influence of engineering education programs and curricula involves assessment. There is a need for developing alternative, effective, and reliable assessment measures to evaluate students’ design activities. The third study aimed to address this need by developing the idea-Sketching Early Engineering Design (i-SEED) Scale to assess pre-college learners’ freehand sketches in response to a design task. Applying the Three-pronged Design Sketching (3-pDS) as a theoretical framework, the purpose of this study was to examine evidence of content validity, construct validity, and internal consistency of the i-SEED Scale data. The data collection took place in a residential summer enrichment program for students with gifts and talents at a Midwestern university. Following different stages of scale-development design, a sample of 113 design sketches were scored in this study, and the scores were used to provide evidence of the validity of the data for the i-SEED Scale. The sketches were generated by 120 middle- and high-school students in a collaborative design-oriented course. Exploratory factor analysis results supported a three-factor model for the i-SEED Scale, including Visual-Spatial Characteristics, Design Creativity, and Communicating Ideas.