Sit Back and Relax, Computers are About to Come up with Design Ideas of their Own
Computers have traditionally been a passive tool, they respond to our programming and input. But computers are getting increasingly savvy and more creative.
Imagine being able to tell your PC what your design goals are, what you want to achieve, the constraints you’re dealing with, and then the computer goes off and explores a solution. It’s called “generative design” and Autodesk CTO, Jeff Kowalski believes it will redefine computer-aided design.
In the old design paradigm, you’d come up with an idea, design it on your computer using AutoCAD, Civil 3D, Revit, Inventor, or other industry-specific software, then you’d test your design using analysis software to see how it works and performs. Generative design, on the other hand, starts with telling your computer what you want your design to achieve (as opposed to what you want it to do). As Kowalski explains in a blog for Line//Shape//Space: “You describe your well-stated problem, and then, using generative methods, the computer creates a large set of potential solutions, automatically synthesizing them using cloud computing.”
It’s a concept that Autodesk is exploring through its research project, Dreamcatcher, an experimental design platform that lets designers input their design goals. The system then creates a large set of potential solutions for the designer to explore.
The benefit of this generative design approach is that in the time it would take you to draft and analyze one design, Dreamcatcher has come up with several options for consideration and refining.
Check out the examples of the Dreamcatcher workflow and designs generated completely by a computer in Kowalski’s blog.
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