CAD FOR FREE-FORM SURFACES

Recently, consumer products with complex idiosyncratic curved surfaces are becoming increasingly common in the market, It is now usual for d esigners of products such as cars and consumer electronic goods to use free-form surfaces that cannot be adequately represented in two-dimen sional drawings, As a result, computers, especially three-dimensional CAD systems, have become essential design tools, Unfortunately, 3D CAD systems are still regarded as impossibly complicated by many designer s, To address this problem, we have developed a 3D CAD system that mak es it easy for designers to interactively create and modify the shapes that they have in mind, This system features high-quality modelling f unctions, can also produce rendered views of the models it generates, and incorporates a user-friendly interface that allows the designer to operate the system unaided, Compared to conventional design processes based on 2D drawings and fabrication of the mock-up products, this sy stem provides an environment that can make great contributions to desi gn work, This paper describes the functions and features of the system . Copyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd.