An idea generation support system for industrial designers (idea sketch processor)

Abstract The paper presents a system for facilitating the industrial designer's divergent thinking process in which he often falls into his established thinking way and come to a dead end on the way of generating fresh ideas. The system uses two methods to free the designer from his own established way of thinking. The first method classifies the designer's idea sketches from different viewpoints, and finds new concepts from the intersections of the classified groups. The second method finds a meta-concept of the classifications to arrive at new classification concepts. The system has been used in several students' design projects and has produced good results.