From Kinematics to Shape: in up roach to Innovative

We address the problem of designing the shape of solid objects to satisfy a given set of func-tional specifications. In particular, we show how to design elementary components of mechanical devices (kinematic pairs) from a description of their desired behavior and a set of constraints. This is done using a backtracking algorithm that modifies (or creates) object shapes by adding and deleting line and arc segments to the objects ’ con-tours. These modifications are guided by the con-figuration space description of the desired behav-ior. The algorithm is extended to handle both qualitative and causal descriptions of desired be-haviors. This work is based on the theory of shape and kinematics developed in [Joskowicz, 19881. I