Sunday 3rd July, 2:00 pm to 5:30 pm
Athanassios Economou (Georgia Institute of Technology, USA) | thanos@gatech.edu
Iestyn Jowers (Open University, UK) | iestyn.jowers@open.ac.uk
George Stiny (MIT)
Chris Earl (Open University)
Tzu-Chieh Kurt Hong (Georgia Institute of Technology)
Heather Ligler (Penn State)
James Park (Georgia Institute of Technology)
The workshop builds on work and discussions from the Shape Matching for CAD workshop at DCC‘20 (http://dccconferences.org/dcc20/workshops-shape-matching.html) and the Shape Machine Symposium (https://shape.design.gatech.edu/Symposium).
Development of shape grammar implementations has been a long-standing aim in shape grammar research, starting with the pioneering work of George Stiny and James Gipps in the 1970s, and Ramesh Krishnamurti’s development of the first shape grammar interpreter in the 1980s. The forty year period since then has been punctuated with notable developments in shape grammar implementation, but has not yet produced a common platform which can focus research efforts on shape grammar implementation, application, and underlying theory.
In recent years, the Shape Computation Lab at Georgia Institute of Technology have developed Shape Machine, a new computational technology that fundamentally redefines the way shapes are represented, indexed, queried and operated upon. Its foregrounding of visual rules (shape rules drawn in a 2D or 3D modeling system) over symbolic rules (instructions defined in some programming language) provides a robust technology for engineers, computer scientists, designers, students and educators, and in general academics and professionals who use drawings and visual models to develop and communicate their ideas.
The aim of this workshop is two-fold: Firstly, it will provide a hands-on demonstration of this new shape grammar implementation, providing a tutor led session that introduces the process of creating and applying shape rules using the Shape Machine Interface. Time will also be allocated to self-led exploration of the technology and its capabilities. Secondly, the workshop will explore questions pertaining to the transformative impact of this new technology in the field. Shape Machine offers a potential platform to focus research efforts on shape grammar implementation, application, and theory. Having such a platform offers an opportunity to consolidate research produced to-date, and to and postulate the direction of future developments and impact in the field.
Questions relevant to this discussion include but are not limited to:
What are the core challenges that remain to addressed in research efforts on shape grammar implementation, application, and theory?
What new challenges arise as a result of having a common platform for implementing shape grammars?
What new opportunities arise as a result of having a common platform for implementing shape grammars?
How can shape grammars be used in existing design workflows?
Participants do not need to submit anything to attend the workshop. If you want to participate in the hands-on demonstration of Shape Machine you should bring your own computer, with an installation of Rhinoceros 7 (Mac or Windows).
Participants do not need to submit anything to attend the workshop. If you want to participate in the hands-on demonstration of Shape Machine you should bring your own computer, with an installation of Rhinoceros 7 (Mac or Windows).