Brian Henson
Affective Engineering Laboratory, School of Mechanical Engineering, University of Leeds, United Kingdom
Cathy Barnes
Affective Engineering Laboratory, School of Mechanical Engineering, University of Leeds, United Kingdom
Vassilis Agouridas
Affective Engineering Laboratory, School of Mechanical Engineering, University of Leeds, United Kingdom
Tom Childs
Affective Engineering Laboratory, School of Mechanical Engineering, University of Leeds, United Kingdom
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Published in: 10th QMOD Conference. Quality Management and Organiqatinal Development. Our Dreams of Excellence; 18-20 June; 2007 in Helsingborg; Sweden
Linköping Electronic Conference Proceedings 26:49, p.
Published: 2008-02-15
ISBN:
ISSN: 1650-3686 (print), 1650-3740 (online)
Almost all surface textures on engineered artefacts are defined and specified by the manufacturing process that creates them. For example; the frosting on glass cosmetics bottles is the result of shot-blasting; fabrics are woven and natural wooden surfaces can be waxed and polished. It is possible to create purely synthetic textures; for example by engraving decorations on to moulds; but designers usually create the texture based on their overall impression of the surface; rather than trying to achieve particular physical properties of the surface; and often try to emulate surfaces that occur elsewhere; such as those of leather or wood.
It might be that our palette of available surface textures is somewhat restricted and that textures are yet to be discovered; which are not the result of existing manufacturing processes; that when combined with other physical properties of the surface material; such as compliance and thermal conductivity; produce useful effects.
This paper presents initial results of ongoing research to establish a process for synthesising surface textures. The steps of the process are as follows.
- Establish an affective specification of the required surface.
- Identify a physical specification of the surface.
- Model candidate manufacturing processes.
- Create surface profiles using models of candidate manufacturing processes.
- Generate computer representations of the surface.
- Manufacture surface using processes such as printing; selective laser sintering or micromachining.
- Test that the generated surface has the required affective properties.
Initial work by the authors in each of these steps is described in the following sections.
