The Theories And Methods Of Product Color Intelligent Design

Product color is one of the most important factors attracting consumers to select andbuy a product. However, product color has been the weakness of industrial design innovationso far. Many products are unmarketable for their unpleasant and ugly colors. Nowproduct-color intelligent design (PCID) technique is rounding into a new approach to solvethe problem based on conventional product color design theories, advanced CAD techniqueand artificial intelligence (AI) theory. Now PCID study is confronted with several keyproblems: a sane computer intelligent thinking system need to be established; no effectivemethod to represent color design concept, imagery and concept-image; no practicablesystemic theories or methods for product-color intelligent design and evaluation.With the sponsor of national natural science foundation (NO: 50275122) and national863 project (NO: 2002AA411120&2002AA411110), this paper studies the key techniques ofPCID from basic theory to engineering application. Applying psycho-physical theory, colorscience, CAD and AI theory, it builds a new technique called product-color intelligent designbased on multi-thinking (PCIDBMT), including multi-thinking (MT) system framework,interactive color harmony, design concept capture and evaluation, shape-color couplingaesthetics (SCCA) estimate, automatic design and optimization of product color schemes.The primary contents of this paper are as follows:(1) An MT system framework has been constructed for PCIDThe essence of design activity is thinking, therefore the study of design thinking theoryis a significant way to achieve product innovation. Based on the overview of current researchin thinking science, this paper presents the MT concept and a new design method calledPCIDBMT which is different from the conventional design theories such as axiomatic designtheory, extension design method and TRIZ technique,.etc. According to extension theory, itconstructs a concept model, an object model, an operation model and a relationship model ofMT. It also builds an MT system framework for PCID according to product color designprocess, and this framework set up a basic theory for PCID technique study.(2) Interactive color harmony techniquesConventional CAD systems lack of color harmony tool and color image model whichare in accord with vision rule. This paper introduces Munsell color system which is really inaccord with vision rule, and then it builds a color harmony model orient image thinking(CHMOIT) based on ANN technology. A contrast experiment has been done betweenCHMOIT and the Lab model in Photoshop system. Experiment results indicate thatCHMOIT has better vision order and uniformity. Four interactive color harmony controlalgorithms have been set up based on CHMOIT, which can produce series harmony coloraccording to the primary color and harmony type selected by designer. Hence designers mayextricate from the fussy work of color harmony.(3) Color design concept-image capture and evaluation methods This paper introduces color concept, color imagery and color concept-image into PCIDstudy according to MT theory. It sets up a representation method based on multidimensionalsemantic space, analyses the measurement features of color image and semantic conceptwith set theory and measure theory, discusses the mapping features between color image andcolor concept spaces, and presents an algorithm to avoid semantic hole brought by theinterference between semantic dimension and granularity. Further more, this paper putsforward a concept-image reliability estimate technique as for the problem of color concept'ssubjectivity, constructs a reliability evaluation model based on rough set theory and alsoprovides a quantitative evaluation technique for product color design orientation.(4) Shape-color coupling aesthetics (SCCA) evaluation methodsNeither Conventional aesthetics principles nor Moon-Spencer (MS) theory can evaluateproduct appearance's aesthetics quantificationally. Based on G. Birkhoff aesthetics model,MS theory and psycho-physical field theory, this paper puts forward SCCA evaluationmethod. It applies shape-color coupling topological map to representing the relationshipbetween color and shape,, and constructs a multi-focus SCCA model based on visionattention mechanism. Psycho-physical experiments indicate that the evaluation results of thismethod are in accord with the results offered by experts.(5) Product color intelligent design and optimization techniques based on genetic andimmunity theoryThis paper introduces genetic and immunity theory into PCID study, establishes a genecoding principle based on product subassembly, constructs a fitness function of colorschemes according to SCCA model, applies genetic and immunity algorithm to simulate theradiation and convergence process of MT, at last it builds a product color design model.Experiments prove that this method can design and optimize color schemes on its own.Finally, it develops PCIDBMT system integrating theories and methods above. Amobile color design process in PCIDBMT system is tested and discussed in brief. The testshows PCIDBMT system can produce a mass of beautiful and pleasant schemes in a shorttime according to design concept, which proves that the theories and methods of PCIDBMTare feasible and effective.