An evolutionary form design method based on aesthetic dimension selection and NSGA-II

Abstract In the era of rapid product update and intense competition, aesthetic design has been increasingly important in various fields, as aesthetic feelings of customers largely influence their purchase preferences. However, the quantification of aesthetic feeling is still a very subjective process due to vague evaluations. The determination of form parameters according to aesthetics is difficult hitherto. Aesthetic measure recently arises as a prominent tool for this purpose using formulas derived from aesthetic theory. But as revealed by existing studies, it needs to be customized with deterministic and objective methods to be reliable in practice use. To facilitate this application, this paper proposes an evolutionary form design method, integrating aesthetic dimension selection and parameter optimization. After summarizing initial aesthetic dimensions, aesthetic dimension selection based on expert decision-making and particle swarm optimization (PSO) is carried out. With filtered aesthetic dimensions, design parameters are optimized with NSGA-II (non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm). The quality of pareto solutions obtained to be design schemes is assessed by three criteria to conduct sensitivity analysis of cross and mutation probability and population size. Our experiment using bicycle form design shows that the proposed evolutionary form design method can generate numerous and variant aesthetic design schemes rapidly. This is very useful for both product redesign and innovative new product development.