Semiautomatic Exploration of Conceptual Design Spaces through Parametric Shape Variability and Additive Manufacturing

Design ideation activities that involve the manipulation of geometry rely heavily on manual input. For feasibility reasons, the generation of design alternatives must often be limited, particularly when these alternatives need to be prototyped and tested. This paper describes a conceptual design strategy that leverages variational three-dimensional geometry to automatically generate a large number of design alternatives from a template model and their corresponding physical prototypes for evaluation and testing. In our approach, 3D geometric variations are produced automatically from a single design concept modeled parametrically, which are then used to generate 3D-printable files. Our method is suitable for design scenarios where real-world testing is preferred over virtual simulation and requires designers to consider a concept idea as a family of solutions, instead of a single design option. Our strategy enables an effective exploration of conceptual design spaces in highly constrained situations and facilitates parallel prototyping, which is known to produce better results than serial prototyping. We demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method through a case study that involves the design of an instrument for ophthalmic surgery for extracting an intraocular lens (IOL) from the eye. Using our approach, nine unique concept families comprising a total of 150 designs were rapidly and successfully prototyped and tested.