O trabalho investiga a interferência de ferramentas e suportes eletrônicos no desenho criativo gestual de design e arquitetura, e estabelece relação comparativa entre as expressões no sistema aberto e sistema fechado, aprofundando-se na descrição de ferramentas e suportes eletrônicos. Discorre pela fundamentação de conceitos de desenho, aplicações, representações e registros. Na estratégia de abordagem ao desenho, descreve análises técnicas e históricas de softwares e hardwares disponíveis, traçando leitura descritiva de ferramentas e suportes utilizados, culminando em promessas e expectativas a partir do estado da arte atual. Aproxima-se ao tema do trabalho na análise de linguagem das expressões de desenho gestual expressivo, com exemplos históricos em desenho criativo: esboços e renderings de projeto de automóveis tanto no meio analógico como no digital. / The work investigates the interference of tools and electronic supports in the gestural design and architecture?s creative drawing, and establishes comparative relationship between the open and closed expressions system, in a profound description of tools and electronic supports. It discourses about the groundwork of drawing?s concepts, applications, representations and registrations. In the strategy approach to the drawing, it describes technical and historical analyses about software and hardware, linking with a descriptive reading of tools and supports used, culminating in promises and expectations from the state of the art. It is come close to the work subject in the analyzes of language of the expressions of expressive gestural drawing, with historical examples in creative drawing: sketches and renderings of automobiles? project thus in the analogical as digital means.

M.Tech. (Industrial Design) / One of the greatest social problems we face as society as a whole and South Africa in particular, is food insecurity. Food insecurity manifests itself in many forms and has a dramatic impact on the wellbeing of people. People need food to survive, but often the food systems they rely on are vulnerable to price shocks and changes, which in turn diminishes their resilience. Local food systems are crucial in reducing vulnerability and improving food security. But often the tools used are not appropriate, especially for household farming. In this study design is used to bring about considered change in the area of household food security, by addressing the tools used for household farming. Household farming is not a typical focus for designers, but well-designed tools could have a dramatic influence on the ability of a household to have a more productive food garden therefore well designed tools is a valuable place for design to be applied. The design intervention of a Household Farming Kit (HFK) and its development is explored. The methods used for the design and development are human-centric in nature, but also acknowledge the opportunity for the designer to have a meaningful influence on the final outcome. The influence could be toward more environmentally sound farming practices. The process adopted used the development of a series of prototype iterations which were evaluated by participants to recommend the alteration or changing of the prototypes. Three phases of prototypes were developed and evaluated, with each building on the knowledge gained from the previous. These were tested predominantly in two locations: Noordgesig outside Johannesburg and Kanana in the North West province in South Africa. The evaluations by the farmers who participated in this study were essential in the development process, in order for the designs to be appropriate to their needs. This study had a very practical focus, with the development of the Household Farming Kit, but it also had a strong methodological focus, experimenting with methods used to design products in a developmental context. The successes and failures of the study are documented in order to contribute to the field of Industrial Design, specifically design research in the area of Design for Development.

Some relevant aspects of dynamics and control of heavy-duty hydraulic machines in a teleoperated mode were investigated. These machines, such as excavators and forest harvesters, are mostly used in primary industries. They have a manipulator-like structure with a nonlinear and coupled actuating system. The aim of the project is to investigate different approaches towards converting such machines, with minimum changes, into task-oriented human-supervisory control systems. This provides the opportunity to use both human supervision and robotic power in hazardous environments and for tasks for which human decision is necessary. A methodology was developed for fast and accurate simulations. Analytical, steady-state and numerical techniques were combined using Large-Scale Systems analysis. The inclusion of nonlinearities in the form of discontinuities (e.g., gear backlash and stick-slip friction) in the model was investigated. Numerical simplifications of the structural dynamics and alternative solutions for the hydraulic part were also studied. The model describing the performance of the machine has been written in ACSL (Advanced Continuous Simulation Language) on a VAX computer system. A modified version of the program is at present running close to real-time on a single processor in conjunction with high speed graphics in a manner similar to a flight simulator used for human interface studies and training. The model also evaluates the performance of the machine in a teleoperated mode and under different control strategies. As a result a velocity control algorithm has been developed which is applied in conjunction with the closed-loop components for teleoperation of heavy-duty hydraulic machines; it is basically a feedforward compensation which uses the measured hydraulic line pressures along with fluid-flow equations as criteria to control the joint velocities as well as to uncouple the interconnected actuating system. The control algorithm has been written in C language and is running on an IRONICS computer system, interfaced between the human operator and the machine. The simulation results are supported by the experimental evidence. The experiments were performed on a Caterpillar 215B excavator. Improved operator safety, extension of human capability, job quality and productivity increase are the advantages of a successful implementation of robotic technology to these industrial machines. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Mechanical Engineering, Department of / Graduate

Novel algorithms in robot inverse kinematics and path planning are proposed. Emphasis is placed on real-time execution speed with multiprocessors and adaptability to unpredictable environments. The inverse kinematics algorithm is an iterative solution which is applicable to many classes of industrial robots, and is stable at and around singularities. The method is based on a simple functional analysis of each link of a manipulator and projecting vectors on the coordinate frame of each joint. Heuristic rules are used to control a mobile manipulator base and to guide the manipulator in the case of non-convergence caused by joint limits. The path planning algorithm uses a potential surface in a quantized configuration space. Paths are guaranteed to be collision-free for all parts of the robot. Local minimum regions on the potential surface are filled on demand by extending the obstacles. Arbitrarily shaped obstacles in 3-dimensions can be handled. Using a hierarchical collision detection technique, high execution speed can be maintained even with many complex shaped obstacles in the workspace. The path planning method can theoretically be applied to any manipulator with any degrees of freedom. The implementation of the inverse kinematics and path planning algorithms in a parallel hierarchical multiprocessor computer structure designed for the control of robots is proposed and investigated. Communication among the processors is by point-to-point message passing via asynchronous serial links with message buffers. Computer simulations are used to demonstrate the appropriateness and feasibility of this computer structure for robot control. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Electrical and Computer Engineering, Department of / Graduate

Cool collabsible är ett projekt som har handlat om att skapa ett hopfällbart utomhusbord. Arbetet har utförts tillsammans med aka buna design consult. Projektet har fokuserats på att hitta en funktion, teknik och material för att sedan transformera detta till ett innovativt utomhusbord. Genom ett utförligt arbete med att definiera målgruppen skapades ramar som format ett bord till den typiska brukaren. Resultatet blev ett hopfällbart bord som hämtat sin inspiration från naturen. Ett bord som fälls upp likt en blomma som slår ut. Genom att koppla en upplevelse till en statisk produkt skapas ett mervärde till bordet, vilket medför att det kommer sticka ut från dagens marknad. / Cool collapsible is a project that involves creating an innovative collapsible outdoor table. This thesis work has been performed in collaboration with aka buna design consult in Salzburg, Austria. Aka buna design consult is a design consultant who works with different product lines, cool collapsible is an internal project where the idea is about creating a product field with different collapsible products. As an exchange student and manage to established a contact and resulted in this thesis. The project has focused on finding a function, technology or materials to then transform it into an innovative outdoor table. By extensively worked to define the target group, created a framework for a table format for the typical user. The result was a collapsible table that got its inspiration from nature. A table, that folds up like a flower blooming. By adding an experience of a static product creates a different relation to the table so that it will stand out from today's market.

When the term ‘design object’ is used to refer to artifacts, we presuppose that they can serve mundane functions and provide aesthetic pleasure. In many cases, the visual form of a design object is a result of achieving aesthetic function and practical function. What is the relation between these two functions? In the design process, designers also strike a balance between aesthetic pursuit, utilitarian purpose and other factors, such as environmental protection. What is the balance of these aims (aesthetic aim and the non-aesthetic aims)? My research on this topic suggests that it may be useful to conceive it in terms of appropriateness. The aim of this dissertation is to investigate the relation between aesthetic and non-aesthetic functions in design objects. Another, larger and more fundamental, purpose of this dissertation is to analyze the notion of appropriateness in design through the conceptions of aesthetic value and moral value. The findings of this research contribute to my argument that appropriateness as a property found in design objects is a balance of aesthetic value, functional value and moral value. This unique quality found in design object can be found in many successful universal designs, and it is also part of the reason why this style can prevail for decades. This research also brings two academic disciplines (the studies of design and aesthetics) together. It is something new and timely from which both disciplines could benefit. In addition, the discussion of Wucius Wong’s art, which is part of the analysis of the different functions of design objects, is an original finding which contributes a detailed understanding of Wong’s art and its relation with design concepts. The appropriateness of design is a decision after all things have been considered in the deliberation. It is not necessarily the best and it can be ever changing according to different situations. The investigation of this topic is not aimed at finding an ideal approach to achieve the appropriateness in design, but through the investigation of the relation between aesthetic function and non-aesthetic functions, and the relation of aesthetic value, functional value and moral value of design objects to contribute architects and designers in making an appropriate decision during the design process.

Realistic modeling, rendering, and animation of physical and virtual shapes have matured significantly over the last few decades. Yet, the creation and subsequent modeling of three-dimensional shapes remains a tedious task which requires not only artistic and creative talent, but also significant technical skill. The perfection witnessed in computer-generated feature films requires extensive manual processing and touch-ups. Every researcher working in graphics and related fields has likely experienced the difficulty of creating even a moderate-quality 3D model, whether based on a mental concept, a hand sketch, or inspirations from one or more photographs or existing 3D designs. This situation, frequently referred to as the content creation bottleneck, is arguably the major obstacle to making computer graphics as ubiquitous as it could be. Classical modeling techniques have primarily dealt with local or low-level geometric entities (e.g., points or triangles) and criteria (e.g., smoothness or detail preservation), lacking the freedom necessary to produce novel and creative content. A major unresolved challenge towards a new unhindered design paradigm is how to support the design process to create visually pleasing and yet functional objects by users who lack specialized skills and training. Most of the existing geometric modeling tools are intended either for use by experts (e.g., computer-aided design [CAD] systems) or for modeling objects whose visual aspects are the only consideration (e.g., computer graphics modeling systems). Furthermore, rapid prototyping, brought on by technological advances 3D printing has drastically altered production and consumption practices. These technologies empower individuals to design and produce original objects, customized according to their own needs. Thus, a new generation of design tools is needed to support both the creation of designs within the domain's constraints, that not only allows capturing the novice user's design intent but also meets the fabrication constraints such that the designs can be realized with minimal tweaking by experts. To fill this void, the premise of this thesis relies on the following two tenets: 1. users benefit from an interactive design environment that allows novice users to continuously explore a design space and immediately see the tradeoffs of their design choices. 2. the machine's processing power is used to assist and guide the user to maintain constraints imposed by the problem domain (e.g., fabrication/material constraints) as well as help the user in exploring feasible solutions close to their design intent. Finding the appropriate balance between interactive design tools and the computation needed for productive workflows is the problem addressed by this thesis. This thesis makes the following contributions: 1. We take a close look at thin shells--materials that have a thickness significantly smaller than other dimensions. Towards the goal of achieving interactive and controllable simulations we realize a particular geometric insight to develop an efficient bending model for the simulation of thin shells. Under isometric deformations (deformations that undergo little to no stretching), we can reduce the nonlinear bending energy into a cubic polynomial that has a linear Hessian. This linear Hessian can be further approximated with a constant one, providing significant speedups during simulation. We also build upon this simple bending model and show how orthotropic materials can be modeled and simulated efficiently. 2. We study the theory of Chebyshev nets--a geometric model of woven materials using a two-dimensional net composed of inextensible yarns. The theory of Chebyshev nets sheds some light on their limitations in globally covering a target surface. As it turns out, Chebyshev nets are a good geometric model for wire meshes, free-form surfaces composed of woven wires arranged in a regular grid. In the context of designing sculptures with wire mesh, we rely on the mathematical theory laid out by Hazzidakis~\cite{Hazzidakis1879} to determine an artistically driven workflow for approximately covering a target surface with a wire mesh, while globally maintaining material and fabrication constraints. This alleviates the user from worrying about feasibility and allows focus on design. 3. Finally, we present a practical design tool for the design and exploration of reconfigurables, defined as an object or collection of objects whose transformation between various states defines its functionality or aesthetic appeal (e.g., a mechanical assembly composed of interlocking pieces, a transforming folding bicycle, or a space-saving arrangement of apartment furniture). A novel space-time collision detection and response technique is presented that can be used to create an interactive workflow for managing and designing objects with various states. This work also considers a graph-based timeline during the design process instead of the traditional linear timeline and shows its many benefits as well as challenges for the design of reconfigurables.

The aim of this thesis is to introduce Fashion Law and its most frequent forms of legal intellectual property protection. The main focus is to analyse copyright law, the industrial design and trademark. Additionally the article analyses the possibility of legal regulation of unfair competitive practices in the fashion industry. In the author's view, there is the future possibility to use protection under patent law due to the use of innovative materials like nanofibers by the fashion industry. The preface is dedicated to the origin of fashion law. Although this field is not so well- known in the Czech Republic, non-profit organization Ústav práva módního průmyslu educates the public through specialized campaigns. Furthermore, copyright work in fashion law and the criterion of informal protection with no need of registration is analysed. The chapter outlines licence and work made for hire. In the fashion industry, the industrial design is a very occurred topic. Priority is given to legal protection of the industrial design. Moreover international treaties, directives and regulations of the EU are mentioned. Fashion designers shall be provided with protection for designs that are new or original, also there exists the possibility of protection for Community design. This thesis is related to the issue...

This thesis was conducted to explore and try to understand the area of comfort within cars with an emphasize on interior surfaces. Research within comfort has been focused on the consequences of moving mechanical parts and not on the user experience of the interior cabin design. A user-centered approach has been implemented to focus on those who are experiencing comfort. Two extensive-user tests have been conducted to investigate the perception of surface material and the combination of radiuses and paddings against three body parts. The results have then been statistically analyzed in combination with a qualitative analysis. It has been found that comfort is hard to define, but many participants, scholars, and designers agree that comfort induces a feeling of relaxation and pleasantness. The user tests have also investigated how the tactile and visual senses affect the perceived pleasantness of a surface material, where the results differ depending on the material. However, both senses need to be considered when designing for comfort. Comfort is considered important to achieve satisfied users, which implies that the evaluation of comfort should be implemented as an essential part of the design process.

Lurelle Van Arsdale Guild (1898-1985) was an author and illustrator of interior decorating literature; a collector of Americana; a pioneering industrial designer; and an amateur architect. Both a popular antiquarian and a modernist, his diverse interests often intermingled in his industrial designs. This dissertation uses Guild's multifaceted and at times contradictory career, which lasted from the 1920s to the 1960s, to explore how modernism drew upon the legacy of colonial American design to create objects that appeared contemporary but were grounded in tradition. This study positions Guild as the archetypal "historical modernist" while creating a larger framework for exploring the intersection of historicism and modernism in American design. The dissertation's introduction and chapter one explore the stylistic plurality that existed in the 1920s and 1930s and introduce the term "historical modernism" as a way to define the aesthetic and ideological overlaps between the era's dominant styles: the Colonial Revival and modernism. Chapters two and three focus on Guild's early career as an author and illustrator promoting traditional taste. The persona he created of the "Itinerant Antiquer" reflected his interest in early American decorative arts and architectural elements, which he and his wife collected and installed at Milestone Village, their property in Connecticut. Chapter four looks at how Guild's personal collection informed his work as an industrial designer. In the 1930s, Guild became a leading figure in the nascent field of industrial design. He drew upon his knowledge of Americana to create hybrid objects that appeared modern but were informed by the past and reflected the ambivalence many American consumers felt towards modernism. Chapter five explores the postwar years when Guild began to retreat from modernism. Instead, he focused on historicist design projects and became an amateur architect, building series of historical fantasy houses. Most histories of American modernism have disproportionately focused on forward-looking designs. This dissertation uses the work and biography of Lurelle Guild to reintroduce the idea of aesthetic pluralism into the historiography of modernist design and explores the legacy of the Colonial past on modernism in America.