Abstract
Nowadays a lot of high-tech electronic products such as TVs, monitors and camcorders are being developed. The more functions the electronic devices have, the more heat problems occur. Therefore, most of electronic products have air-ventilation holes to eliminate heat that is generated inside the products. The shapes of ventilation holes are usually complicated since aesthetic appearance of the products is important these days. In order to create those complicated shapes, designers should do time-consuming jobs because most of commercial CAD systems do not provide the functions that create patterns of lofted parts along freeform surfaces. In this research, an automated air-ventilation hole modeling system was proposed. The system generates patterns of lofted objects on freeform surfaces. Standard process to create air-ventilation holes manually was established, and vent-hole types and pattern types were classified into several categories. Designers can create many kinds of vent-holes by combining vent-hole types and pattern types. Users can also utilize user-defined pattern which can give users more flexibility. Developed system was applied to several design examples and the results are presented.