The main challenge of this PhD topic is to develop novel digital design methods that will enable casual designers to create functional fabricable objects. This is a truly difficult task since casual users often need both an inspiration in order to figure out how the products should look like, as well as an aid in order to technically accomplish the necessities of the intended design.The research in this PhD thesis spans the fields of computational design with interactive modeling. The goal is to develop efficient and flexible approximate solutions for complex high-dimensional optimization problems such that they can be combined with interactive modeling metaphors that will mask away the full complexity of the particular design problems. An especially interesting aspect is the identification and implementation of as generic solutions as possible. The thesis is expected to build on top of our recent work and to contribute to the fields of design optimization, structural optimization, as well as to interactive techniques in shape modeling.
Fig.: Sit & Relax: Interactive Design of Body-Supporting Surfaces (Kurt Leimer)
Supervisor
This topic is supervised by a team of 3 supervisors. Lead supervisor is Przemyslaw Musialski (Institute of Discrete Mathematics and Geometry). Additional supervisors are Helmut Pottmann (Institute of Discrete Mathematics and Geometry) and Florian Rist (Institute of Art and Design).
