Utilizing Visual Illusions To Identify and Understand Perceptual Discrepancies in Product Design

There are often discrepancies in how a product is perceived in different representation media employed in typical product development processes. The first goal of this research project was to determine how visual illusions influence a designer's perception of a product across three representations: industrial design sketches, computer aided design (CAD) models, and physical prototypes (FDM rapid prototyping). A visualization experiment was conducted in which participants were asked to report how they perceived the shape and size of certain features, representing two types of illusions across the three model representations. Their statements were analyzed to identify the trends of how these two illusions affect overall appearance, categorized by representation type and the users' backgrounds (i.e., specialization and years of experience). The participants included students and professionals with various levels of engineering and industrial design experience. The analysis shows that there are differences in how designers see models depending on the representation media, and to some degree depending on the participants' professional background. The second goal was to explore the process of identifying such illusions automatically during the design process. In this regard, a discussion on how to implement the results from the visualization experiment is presented. Emphasis is on the potential development of a tool in CAD systems that would identify illusory effects and subsequently suggest potential design solutions. The possibility of using spectral analysis (fast Fourier transform) for an automated shape recognition capability in CAD systems is discussed.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Science

Level thesis:degree_level

masters

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Mechanical Engineering

Department dc:contributor.department

Mechanical Engineering

Grantor dc:publisher

Virginia Tech

Year dc:date.issued

2006

Author dc:creator

• Boe, Maria

Chairs dc:contributor.committeechair

• Bohn, Jan Helge
• Anderl, Reiner

Committee member dc:contributor.committeemember

• Sturges, Robert H.

• Product development
• Perception
• Visual illusion
• Shape recognition

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Dc Identifier Other

etd-11282006-154545

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/35840