Styling features for industrial design

This chapter focuses on the concept of shape features for industrial design of product models, intended as a means for conveying a specific design intent; in geometric modelling the feature-based approach aims at facilitating the design activity while enabling shape manipulations directly linked to the semantics the user has in mind. This chapter describes, from this perspective, the evolution of the tools for computer-aided industrial design that led to the modern tools and methods for the definition of styling product shape models; an overview of the main research approaches and outcomes for the identification and the exploitation of styling features is provided. The current limitations and possible future trends are presented as well.