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A methodology for user directed search in evolutionary design

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Abstract

A designer should be able to express their intentions with a design tool. This work describes a methodology that enables the architect to directly interact with the encoding of designs they find aesthetically pleasing. Broadening interaction beyond simple evaluation increases the amount of feedback and bias a user can apply to the search. Increased feedback will have the effect of directing the algorithm to more fruitful areas of the search space. We conduct trials on two interfaces for making localised changes to a design in order to evaluate if the user is capable of directing search. In addition, an examination of the locality of changes made by the users provides an insight into how they explore the search space. The results show that a suitably designed interface is capable of directing search and that the participants used different magnitudes of change during directed search.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Andrea McMahon for her unceasing support and we would like to thank SFI grant numbers 08/RFP/CMS1115 and 08/IN.1/I1868 for making this research possible.

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  1. Natural Computing Research and Applications Group, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland

    Jonathan Byrne, Erik Hemberg, Michael O’Neill & Anthony Brabazon

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  1. Jonathan Byrne
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  3. Michael O’Neill
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  4. Anthony Brabazon
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Correspondence to Jonathan Byrne.

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Byrne, J., Hemberg, E., O’Neill, M. et al. A methodology for user directed search in evolutionary design. Genet Program Evolvable Mach 14, 287–314 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10710-013-9189-6

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