Visualizing 3D Configuration Spaces for Mechanical Design

We describe configuration space visualization methods for mechanical design. Configuration spaces are geometric representations of mechanical function that encode quantitative information, such as part motions, and qualitative information, such as system failure modes. Visualization tools help designers elucidate the qualitative information, which appears as geometric properties of the configuration space. The research challenge is to relate the configuration space geometry to the mechanical function of the parts. This is difficult because configuration space is a foreign language to designers and because its geometry is complex and nonlinear. We demonstrate the efficacy of our methods on two small, but realistic design examples.