This thesis concentrates on hands and their production as concerns a larger-scale pipeline with multiple secondary or tertiary characters. It establishes a platform from which many unique hands can be produced from a single, rigged hand. Emphasis is given to automating a large amount of the rigging and sculpting processes through use of high and low-level user interfaces so users of varying skill can use this thesis effectively. Systems for sculpting the hand and animating the hand are created for their own specific purposes and linked together through the interface to create a tool for modeling a new hand from an existing mesh, having the new hand automatically rigged for animation and ready to use with only minor adjustments by the user. A system is developed conclusively that allows for the efficient mass production of tertiary character assets. Unique hands are quickly and correctly created with the ability to connect them to digital characters. This method can be applied not only to hands, but other parts of characters as well. Eventually full secondary or tertiary characters can be created using this method of production.

An experimental investigation involving the design, fabrication, and testing of an ambient sampling inlet and two additional Stokes-scaled inlets is presented here. Testing of each inlet was conducted at wind speeds of 2, 8, and 24 km/h (0.55, 2.22, and 6.67 m/s), and characterized for particle sizes between 5 and 20 µm AD. The base-line ambient sampling inlet, which operates at 100 L/min, was developed to interface with a Circumferential Slot Virtual Impactor aerosol concentrator. The inlet displays wind-speed independent characteristics with a penetration above 90% for a nominal particle size of 10 µm AD for all wind speeds. Particles up to 11.5 µm AD are sampled through this inlet with a penetration above 80% at all wind speeds. In an effort to test the validity of Stokes scaling to assist in the design of inlets, two additional inlets were designed to accommodate design flow rates of 400 L/min and 800 L/min, with the 100 L/min unit as the base inlet. Scaling was achieved by applying a Stokes scaling factor to selective parameters, such as inlet aspiration gap, annular gap, window height, and the rise which is the vertical distance extending from the lower flange to the base of the window. The scaled inlets display wind independent penetration characteristics close to 95% for a nominal particle size of 10 µm AD. The scaled inlets also have the ability to sample particles up to a size of 13 µm AD with a penetration in excess of 80% at all wind speeds. Observations from the plots of penetration against the Stokes number based on the free stream velocity suggest that it is insufficient to use only Stokes-scaling for inlet design. A modified velocity ratio defined for omnidirectional inlets was incorporated into a summary of results obtained for all combinations of BSI units and wind speeds. Also, a correlation equation based on the Stokes number and a modified velocity ratio was developed as a model for predicting performance among the BSI family of inlets. This correlation used in unison with Stokes-scaling provides promise for predicting performance and improving the overall design process of inlets.

Thesis (M.F.A.)--West Virginia University, 2002. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains vi, 61 p. : ill. (some col.). Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 61).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Pennsylvania, 1982. / Cover title. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.Eng.) - Carleton University, 1995. / Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2001. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 263-275).

Thesis (M. Arch.)--University of Hong Kong, 2001. / Includes special study report entitled: Art/space @ media age. Includes bibliographical references.

Processbeskrivning av mitt examensarbete där jag designat ett arbetsbord för mindre lägenheter.

Det jag ville under mitt examensarbete var att undersöka hörnet i hemmamiljön. Jag tycker att hörn är ett spännande område att arbeta med och därför ville jag försöka under mitt projekt aktivera detta.

The use of examples in idea generation is a common practice intended to provide inspiration from existing products to the designing of new ones. Examples can be taken from the Internet, engineering textbooks, analogical databases, literature, a company’s prior designs, or from a competitor company, prior work by the designer, and many other sources. These examples are represented in various ways, such as hand sketches, pictures, computer-aided designs (CAD), physical models, activity diagrams, shape grammars, text descriptions, etc. Design representations can also be broken down by function in the form of functional models and decompositions. The use of these visual or physical examples allows engineers to get a clearer picture of how a design or component works and enables them to have a better understanding of the overall design and function. Each representation has inherent advantages and disadvantages in the way that they portray a design. Examples are sources for analogies. Analogies from nature, where biological organisms have solved challenging problems in novel ways, are very useful in engineering idea generation and solution retrieval. This process is called biologically inspired design. Engineers often use biologically inspired design to solve problems while increasing creativity and expanding the solution space. Using this method, engineers are able to learn from nature and apply biological principles to real world engineering problems to make effective designs and produce innovative solutions. It is important to have a clearer understanding of how the use of the representations and characteristics of examples as external stimuli affect the idea generation process in engineering design. Understanding these processes will be invaluable in offering guidelines for how engineering design should be done and what types of external stimuli should be used to allow for innovation and creativity to be enhanced. This dissertation presents four studies that focus on understanding ways that examples can be used to improve the idea generation process. Three of these studies focus on how the representation of externally imposed examples, which may be used as analogues, influences creativity during idea generation while also minimizing design fixation, which occurs when designers adhere to the features of their own initial design solutions or to features of existing examples. The fourth study focuses on the use of examples as sources for analogical mapping and how these examples produce innovative solutions during idea generation. The first study compares CAD, sketch, and photograph representation presented individually. The second study compares CAD and sketch representation presented together, and the third study examines function tree and sketch representations. The fourth study looks at the real-world context and impact of examples used as sources for analogical mapping to inspire innovative solutions. The results of the studies show that CAD representations of good examples are effective in allowing engineers to identify the key working principles of a design and help to develop higher quality design concepts. CAD representations also cause more fixation to the example’s features. Function trees do not cause nor break fixation compared to a control condition, but do reduce fixation compared with sketches. Biological examples can be successfully used as analogues during engineering idea generation to create novel and effective design solutions to relevant and real-world engineering problems.