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A Structurally Informed Design Process by Real-time Data Visualisations
... The use of data visualisations to gain specific insights during the structural design process has been extensively researched by the author [1][2] [3]. The research observed the typical workflows and processes of the structural designer and identified some of the problems they face. ...
Earlier research by the author investigated how using data visualisations could be helpful to structural designers. The research implicitly showed that the versatile handling, management and manipulation of data is important in order to fully exploit the benefits of parametric design. This paper presents the development of Inkbeagle Data, a new Grasshopper3d plugin that aims to facilitate data management in parametric modelling. The paper discusses how the use of data-rich objects can help make it easier to work with geometric objects and the custom data associated with them. The implementation of the plugin is explained, as well as its user interface, and a small example of its use in practical applications in the field of structural design is given.
This paper presents a review of existing research, projects, developments and applications in the domain of design tools for conceptual structural engineering. The availability of these tools and research into software for conceptual structural design stages has shown a number of interesting developments over the last past few years. The purpose of this investigation is to understand the requirements for software for the early stages of structural design. It investigates the current conceptual design practice, discusses a number of novel trends, and characterizes the relative effectiveness of the available technologies in relation to the nature of the early design stages.
This paper presents a new approach for comparing different structural design alternatives based on data visualisation in the conceptual design phase. The aim of the proposed methodology is to focus on the overall structural behaviour and to include non-numeric architectural parameters. By having the information of all different design proposals at hand, the designer is able to make informed design decisions. Previous research will be discussed in order to introduce this new approach. Illustrated with the cases of a gridshell and bowstring bridges, it turns out that the use of data visualisation and dashboards enriches the design process and that the informed decision-making process is facilitated. What is presented in this paper is part of ongoing research and is focussing on the concept of the new approach and its research context. To have a clear understanding of this research context, an overview of terminology, difficulties of the current design process, and research topics with similar goals are discussed.
This paper proposes a novel approach for comparing different structural geometries based on data visualisation and illustrates this with bowstring bridges as case study. The aim of the approach is to have a quick and overall insight in different design proposals at the beginning of the design process. The approach will use a dashboard that is a combination of charts. This dashboard will enable the (structural) designer to have all information on the structural behaviour of a series of design proposals at hand and to make informed design decisions based on the compact dashboard.
Using engineering performance evaluations to explore design alternatives during the conceptual phase of architectural design helps to understand the relationships between form and performance; and is crucial for developing well-performing final designs. Computer aided conceptual design has the potential to aid the design team in discovering and highlighting these relationships; especially by means of procedural and parametric geometry to support the generation of geometric design, and building performance simulation tools to support performance assessments. However, current tools and methods for computer aided conceptual design in architecture do not explicitly reveal nor allow for backtracking the relationships between performance and geometry of the design. They currently support post-engineering, rather than the early design decisions and the design exploration process.Focusing on large roofs, this research aims at developing a computational design approach to support designers in performance driven explorations. The approach is meant to facilitate the multidisciplinary integration and the learning process of the designer; and not to constrain the process in precompiled procedures or in hard engineering formulations, nor to automatize it by delegating the design creativity to computational procedures. PAS (Performance Assessment Strategies) as a method is the main output of the research. It consists of a framework including guidelines and an extensible library of procedures for parametric modelling. It is structured on three parts.Pre-PAS provides guidelines for a design strategy-definition, toward the parameterization process. Model-PAS provides guidelines, procedures and scripts for building the parametric models. Explore-PAS supports the solutions-assessment based on numeric evaluations and performance simulations, until the identification of a suitable design solution. PAS has been developed based on action research. Several case studies have focused on each step of PAS and on their interrelationships.The relations between the knowledge available in pre-PAS and the challenges of the solution space exploration in explore-PAS have been highlighted. In order to facilitate the explore-PAS phase in case of large solution spaces, the support of genetic algorithms has been investigated and the exiting method ParaGen has been further implemented. Final case studies have focused on the potentials of ParaGen to identify well performing solutions; to extract knowledge during explore-PAS; and to allow interventions of the designer as an alternative to generations driven solely by coded criteria.Both the use of PAS and its recommended future developments are addressed in the thesis.
The paper demonstrates concepts for designing stiffer structures. They are: (a) the more direct the internal force path, the stiffer the structure; (b) the more uniform the internal force distribution, the stiffer the structure; and (c) the smaller the internal forces, the stiffer the structure. These concepts are applicable to the design of many structures. Two ways of implementing the concepts into practice are provided. Simple examples are given to illustrate the implementation and the efficiency of the concepts. Laboratory tests and the demonstration of two physical models further confirm the findings. Several practical designs are also provided to show the applicability and significance of these concepts. An alternative definition of structural stiffness is given which complements the existing definition and allows for designing stiffer structures. It is interesting to note that using the concepts may lead to not only stiffer but also more economical and elegant designs.
This paper outlines recent efforts by the author to integrate modern web-based data visualisation techniques into decision-making efforts for structural design projects. It traces the development of data visualisation, detailing powerful new techniques, which exist in modern web browsers, and are already used by many other data-rich professions. Explaining the underlying technology as compared to current engineering visualisation equivalents. With the benefits and potential applications of this technology to design engineering discussed. Then using real design problems, some example applications of these methods applied to structural engineering decision making support are described and explained for supporting large scale option based decision making with structural engineering data.
During the first steps of the design process, architects, engineers and structural designers will come up with concepts, architectural ideas, structural considerations etc. This part of the design process is called the conceptual design process. An exploration of the design space will take place and different design alternatives are compared to each other. Based on these comparisons, the designer will proceed in the design process by selecting the best performing solutions. Currently these comparisons are mainly based on aesthetics, architectural considerations, experience… When a designer on the other hand wants to make a comparison based on structural performance and behaviour, no appropriate tools exist. Since the amount of data that has to be considered can become relatively large within a modern computational framework, it is a good practice to make use of tools that allow for an intuitive interpretation of these vast amounts of data. In this paper, data visualisation will be used as a method to quickly and intuitively draw conclusions about the structural behaviour and performance of various design alternatives. The designer can freely explore the design space and gains additionally insight in the structural behaviours and performances. The methodology will be illustrated with a case study on bridge geometries. In addition, the computational environment that the author is developing will be discussed.
Two figures are reciprocal when the properties of the first relative to the second are the same as those of the second relative to the first. Several kinds of reciprocity are known to mathematicians, and the theories of Inverse Figures and of Polar Reciprocals have been developed at great length, and have led to remarkable results. I propose to investigate a different kind of geometrical reciprocity, which is also capable of considerable development, and can be applied to the solution of mechanical problems.
Conceptual design should contain two kinds of steps: divergent in which alternative concepts are generated, and convergent in which these are evaluated and selected. The aim of conceptual design is to develop promising concepts. This requires generating a wide range of concepts (to prevent overlooking valuable concepts), and evaluating/selecting these soon enough (to restrict their number from getting too large to allow meaningful consideration). Existing concept generation approaches are suggested to be used only after concept sketches are available. This raises a question—what should the ‘ideal’ approach be before concept sketches are developed? This paper proposes such an approach.
- H Cox
Cox, H 1965, The Design of Structures of Least Weight: International Series of Monographs in Aeronautics and
Astronautics: Solid and Structural Mechanics, Pergamon Press
Implementation of Realtime Data Visualisations for Structural Design within a Parametric Workflow
- L Loos
- De Laet
Loos, L and De Laet, L 2018 'Implementation of Realtime Data Visualisations for Structural Design within
a Parametric Workflow', Proceedings of the International Association for Shell and Spatial Structures
(IASS) Symposium 2018, p. 8
How to re-open the black box in the structural design of complex geometries
- K Verbeeck
- L Loos
- De Muller
- Laet
Verbeeck, K, Loos, L, Muller, L and De Laet, L 2016 'How
to re-open the black box in the structural design
of complex geometries', Proceedings of the international Conference on Structures and Architecture 2016,
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Woodbury, RF and Burrow, AL 2006, 'Whither Design
Space?', Artificial Intelligence for Engineering Design,
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