Semantic-based environment for aesthetic design

This paper presents a first step in the elaboration of a semantic-based modelling environment addressed to the conceptual design phase of an industrial product. Up to now shape generation and manipulation in aesthetic design are still based on low-level geometric tools that come from the classical CAD paradigm. On the other hand, the design of a product is mainly driven by designers' creativity and high-level constraints. In order to capture and structure the semantics mbedded in the first sketches representing the product, an ontology has been devised to guide more easily the generation and manipulation of curves, basic elements of the product representation in the early design phase. This ontology includes a taxonomy of the aesthetic curves in the automotive field and a curve manipulation setting based on a shape grammar, creating explicit relationships between the two contexts.