• Archives of design research
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• v.19 no.1 s.63
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• pp.225-234
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• 2006

Product designers sketch various ideas of foreground figures(detail design) onto background figures(basic form) and evaluate numerous combinations of them in the late stages of design process. Designers have to test their ideas elaborately with a high-fidelity physical model that looks like a real product. However, due to the requirements of time and expense in making high-fidelity design models, it is impossible to evaluate such a number of combinatorial solutions of background and foreground figures. Contrary to digital models, physical design models are not easily modifiable and so designers cannot easily develope ideas through iterative design-evaluation process. To address these problems, we proposed a new concept 'Augmented Plasticity' that gives morphological editability to a rigid physical object using Augmented Reality technology and implemented the idea as Digital Skin system. Digital Skin system figures out the position and orientation of object surface with ARToolKit visual marker and superimposes a deformed surface image seamlessly using differential rendering method. We tried to apply Digital Skin system to detail design, redesign of product, and material exploration task. In consequence, it was found that Digital Skin system has potential to allow designers to implement and test their ideas very efficiently in the late stages of design process.