From shape to style. Shape grammars: Issues in representation and computation, presentation and selection

Shape grammars provide a graphical mechanism for generating a variety of shapes. A shape grammar is a production system for specifying recursive graphical computations for shapes (finite arrangements of finite lines of non-zero length). The dissertation considers design as a plan in art and confines itself to abstract designs composed of lines of uniform color and thickness. The dissertation develops an implementation of shape grammars in which the drawing is the computation. Restricting itself to non-parametric shape grammars, the dissertation approaches the area as two related topics: computation and representation delineate the internal aspects of the problem, presentation and selection are crucial to the user interface. The dissertation applies shape grammars to design, promoting three claims: First, that this dissertation advances the field of shape grammars, by combining approaches in the humanities with those in science, articulating the issues and providing a solid foundation for future work. Second, supporting quality design depends on enumerating the alternatives and pruning the design space using the visual aspects of design. Third, the generative aspect of design is not as important as its presentation and selection.