Group items tagged

Abstract: "This thesis aims to study the design possibilities for supporting explorative form-finding in 3D modeling applications. For today's many design professions, 3D forms are achieved partly in engagement with digital environments. Use of software has far exceeded final idea execution, extending to the early phases of design work in which the outcome is not predetermined. This insight led designers of interactive systems support sketching and ideating activities by reducing the risk of experimentation and cognitive effort demanded from user. Yet, there has been less emphasis on traditional design and craft practice that acknowledges engagement with materials and effort spent on work as an integral part of creative process. The notion of exploration in the scope of this thesis attempts to incorporate such aspects. Relevant literature about workshop practice in design and craft has been reviewed, as well as examples of CAD technologies that aid designers. In this light, HCI perspectives on the design of creativity support tools and games have been discussed. The thesis work aimed to concretize this background by building a design strategy and an interactive artifact. A 3D form-finding application concept using objects in modeling space to indirectly manipulate geometry, "kfields", has been developed and evaluated with users at various stages. The thesis concludes by reflecting on the findings of different design stages and proposing further directions for design. Keywords: 3D Modeling, CAD, digital material, form"

"Smartphone devices are becoming the de facto personal com- puting platform, rivaling the desktop, as the number of smartphone users is projected to reach 1.1 billion by 2013. Unlike the desktop, smartphones have a constrained energy budget, which is further challenged by increasingly sophisti- cated applications. Amongst the most popular applications on smartphone devices are games and virtual environments that rely on 3D graphics. Due to the computational inten- sity of geometry and rasterization, as well as the perpetually illuminated display, these applications are extremely power- hungry. To prolong the battery life of devices running these applications, we propose two new energy-aware adaptation schemes that can be employed in 3D graphics applications: lighting limitation and textural transformation. Our results show that we can conserve between 20% and 33% of energy with acceptable sacrices to a user's visual experience."