SketchIT: A Sketch Interpretation Tool for Conceptual Mechanical Design

Item

Title
en_US SketchIT: A Sketch Interpretation Tool for Conceptual Mechanical Design
Creator
en_US Stahovich, Thomas F.
Date
2004-10-20T14:45:16Z
Date Available
2004-10-20T14:45:16Z
Date Issued
en_US 1996-03-13
Identifier
en_US AITR-1573
Abstract
en_US We describe a program called SketchIT capable of producing multiple families of designs from a single sketch. The program is given a rough sketch (drawn using line segments for part faces and icons for springs and kinematic joints) and a description of the desired behavior. The sketch is "rough" in the sense that taken literally, it may not work. From this single, perhaps flawed sketch and the behavior description, the program produces an entire family of working designs. The program also produces design variants, each of which is itself a family of designs. SketchIT represents each family of designs with a "behavior ensuring parametric model" (BEP-Model), a parametric model augmented with a set of constraints that ensure the geometry provides the desired behavior. The construction of the BEP-Model from the sketch and behavior description is the primary task and source of difficulty in this undertaking. SketchIT begins by abstracting the sketch to produce a qualitative configuration space (qc-space) which it then uses as its primary representation of behavior. SketchIT modifies this initial qc-space until qualitative simulation verifies that it produces the desired behavior. SketchIT's task is then to find geometries that implement this qc-space. It does this using a library of qc-space fragments. Each fragment is a piece of parametric geometry with a set of constraints that ensure the geometry implements a specific kind of boundary (qcs-curve) in qc-space. SketchIT assembles the fragments to produce the BEP-Model. SketchIT produces design variants by mapping the qc-space to multiple implementations, and by transforming rotating parts to translating parts and vice versa.
Extent
en_US 207 p.
7107095 bytes
965827 bytes
Format
application/postscript
application/pdf
Language
en_US
Relation
en_US AITR-1573
Subject
en_US AI
en_US MIT
en_US Artificial Intelligence
en_US Qualitative Reasoning
en_US Design
en_US Geometric Reasoning
en_US Qualitative Simulation