The capabilities of additive manufacturing (AM) open up designers’ solution space and enable them to build designs previously impossible through traditional manufacturing. To leverage AM, designers must not only generate creative ideas, but also propagate these ideas without discarding them in the early design stages. This emphasis on selecting creative ideas is particularly important in design for AM (DfAM), as ideas perceived as infeasible through the traditional design for manufacturing lens could now be feasible with AM. Several studies have discussed the role of DfAM in encouraging creative idea generation; however, there is a need to understand concept selection in DfAM. In this paper, we investigated the effect of two variations in DfAM education: 1) restrictive DfAM and 2) dual DfAM (opportunistic and restrictive) on students’ concept selection process. Specifically, we compared the creativity of the concepts generated by the students to the creativity of the concepts selected by them. Further, we performed qualitative analyses to explore the rationale provided by the students in making these design decisions. From the results, we see that teams from both educational groups select ideas of greater usefulness; however, only teams from the restrictive DfAM group select ideas of higher uniqueness and overall creativity. Further, we see that introducing students to opportunistic DfAM increases their emphasis on the complexity of designs when evaluating and selecting them. These results highlight the need for DfAM education to encourage AM designers to not just generate but also select creative ideas.
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This content will become publicly available on May 2, 2025
iCONTRA: Toward Thematic Collection Design Via Interactive Concept Transfer
Creating thematic collections in industries demands innovative designs and cohesive concepts. Designers may face challenges in maintaining thematic consistency when drawing inspiration from existing objects, landscapes, or artifacts. While AI-powered graphic design tools offer help, they often fail to generate cohesive sets based on specific thematic concepts. In response, we introduce iCONTRA, an interactive CONcept TRAnsfer system. With a user-friendly interface, iCONTRA enables both experienced designers and novices to effortlessly explore creative design concepts and efficiently generate thematic collections. We also propose a zero-shot image editing algorithm, eliminating the need for fine-tuning models, which gradually integrates information from initial objects, ensuring consistency in the generation process without influencing the background. A pilot study suggests iCONTRA’s potential to reduce designers’ efforts. Experimental results demonstrate its effectiveness in producing consistent and high-quality object concept transfers. iCONTRA stands as a promising tool for innovation and creative exploration in thematic collection design.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2025234
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10521811
- Publisher / Repository:
- ACM
- Date Published:
- ISBN:
- 9798400703317
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 1 to 8
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Location:
- Honolulu HI USA
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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null (Ed.)Abstract The capabilities of additive manufacturing (AM) open up designers’ solution space and enable them to build designs previously impossible through traditional manufacturing (TM). To leverage this design freedom, designers must emphasize opportunistic design for AM (DfAM), i.e., design techniques that leverage AM capabilities. Additionally, designers must also emphasize restrictive DfAM, i.e., design considerations that account for AM limitations, to ensure that their designs can be successfully built. Therefore, designers must adopt a “dual” design mindset—emphasizing both, opportunistic and restrictive DfAM—when designing for AM. However, to leverage AM capabilities, designers must not only generate creative ideas for AM but also select these creative ideas during the concept selection stage. Design educators must specifically emphasize selecting creative ideas in DfAM, as ideas perceived as infeasible through the traditional design for manufacturing lens may now be feasible with AM. This emphasis could prevent creative but feasible ideas from being discarded due to their perceived infeasibility. While several studies have discussed the role of DfAM in encouraging creative idea generation, there is a need to investigate concept selection in DfAM. In this paper, we investigated the effects of four variations in DfAM education: (1) restrictive, (2) opportunistic, (3) restrictive followed by opportunistic (R-O), and (4) opportunistic followed by restrictive (O-R), on students’ concept selection process. We compared the creativity of the concepts generated by students to the creativity of the concepts they selected. The creativity of designs was measured on four dimensions: (1) uniqueness, (2) usefulness, (3) technical goodness, and (4) overall creativity. We also performed qualitative analyses to gain insight into the rationale provided by students when making their design decisions. From the results, we see that only teams from the restrictive and dual O-R groups selected ideas of higher uniqueness and overall creativity. In contrast, teams from the dual R-O DfAM group selected ideas of lower uniqueness compared with the mean uniqueness of ideas generated. Finally, we see that students trained in opportunistic DfAM emphasized minimizing build material the most, whereas those trained only in restrictive DfAM emphasized minimizing build time. These results highlight the need for DfAM education to encourage AM designers to not just generate creative ideas but also have the courage to select them for the next stage of design.more » « less
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