Visual Interfaces for Solids Modeling

Cindy Grimm, John Hughes, Brown University
David Pugmire, Mark Bloomenthal, Elaine Cohen Utah University

This paper explores the use of visual operators for solids modeling. We focus on designing interfaces for free-form operators such as blends, sweeps, and deformations, because these operators have a large number of interacting parameters whose effects are often determined by an underlying parameterization. In this type of interactive modeling good solutions to the design problem have aesthetic as well as engineering components.

Traditionally, interaction with the parameters of these operators has been through text editors, curve editors, or trial-and-error with a slider bar. Parametric values have been estimated from data, but not interactively. These parameters are usually one- or two-dimensional, but the operators themselves are intrinsically three-dimensional in that they are used to model surfaces visualized in 3D. The traditional textual style of interaction is tedious and interposes a level of abstraction between the parameters and the resulting surface. A 3D visual of these free-form operators.

This paper discusses the difficulties in creating a coherent user interface for interactive modeling. To this end we present four principles for designing visual operators, using several free-form visual operators as concrete examples.

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