IMPRESSION-DRIVEN DESIGN SCHEME FOR A CLASS OF 3D OBJECTS BASED ON MORPHABLE 3D SHAPE MODEL, AND ITS AUTOMATIC BUILDUP BY SUPPLEMENTARY FEATURE SAMPLING

This paper describes a method for achieving a novel design within a class of 3D objects that would create a preferred impression on users. Physical parameters of the 3D objects that might strongly contribute to their visual impressions are sought through computational investigation of the impression ratings obtained for learning samples. "Car body" was selected as the class of 3D objects to be investigated. A morphable 3D model of car bodies that describes the variations in appearance using a smaller number of parameters was obtained. Based on each car body's rating for the impression of speediness obtained by paired comparison, the visual impression was transformed by manipulating the parameters defined in the morphable 3D model. The validity of the proposed method was confirmed by psychological experiments. A new scheme is also proposed to properly re-sample a novel object of a peculiar shape so that such an object could also be represented by the morphable 3D model.