Construction of Basic-Element Database for Traditional Chinese Culture in Industrial Design

Transcription

1 Available online at ScienceDirect Procedia Computer Science 91 (2016 ) Information Technology and Quantitative Management (ITQM 2016) Construction of Basic-Element Database for Traditional Chinese Culture in Industrial Design Abstract Haotian Li a, Wei Liu b, Xingsen Li c * a Zhejiang University of Technology, Liuhe Road 288#, Hangzhou, , China b School of Foreign Languages, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing, , China c Research Center on Intelligent Computing and Data Management, Ningbo Institute of Technology, Zhejiang University, Qianhu Road 1#, Ningbo, , China With the rapid advancement of internet and mobile internet, e-commerce has facilitated international trade and daily shopping. Appealed by the potential large Chinese market, many foreign companies have already got engaged in the development of new products aimed only to Chinese market or in the localization of the old products in Chinese market. In order to achieve this ambition, one of the necessary steps is to localize the external design of the product. However, many designers have never lived in China and thus lacked adequate understanding into Chinese culture. One of the sticky problems that puzzle those foreign designers is how to make full use of traditional Chinese cultural elements. This paper aims to present a Extenics-based method to find out all the possible traditional Chinese elements for appearance designing and establish an information database to provide some reference and help for those foreign designers in need. The applications in several industry designs have approved its effectiveness Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. ( Peer-review Selection and/or under responsibility peer-review of under the Organizing responsibility Committee of the of organizers ITQM 2016 of ITQM 2016 Keywords: Industrial Design; Traditional Chinese Culture; Extenics; Information technology; Basic-Element Base 1. Introductions With the rapid advancement of internet and mobile internet, e-commerce has facilitated international trade and daily shopping. Appealed by the potential large Chinese market, many foreign companies have already got engaged in the development of new products aimed only to Chinese market or in the localization of the old products in Chinese market. In order to achieve this ambition, one of the necessary steps is to localize the external design of the product. However, many designers have never lived in China and thus lacked adequate * Corresponding author. Tel.: address: lixs@nit.zju.edu.cn Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license ( Peer-review under responsibility of the Organizing Committee of ITQM 2016 doi: /j.procs

2 1012 Haotian Li et al. / Procedia Computer Science 91 ( 2016 ) understanding into Chinese culture. One of the sticky problems that puzzle those foreign designers is how to make full use of traditional Chinese cultural elements. In the era of information anywhere[1], How to use knowledge effectively in product conceptual design, product design and innovation have made a lots of progress[2-7], but how to express Traditional Chinese Culture in product design lack of deep research. Extenics is a new discipline founded by Wen Cai [8]. It constitutes of Extension theory, extension innovation methodology and extension engineering is a new discipline for dealing with contradictory problems with formulized models [9]. Extension theory consists of basic-element, extension logic and extension set theory. Basic-element can organize information or designing elements in a formalized 3-column-matrix form and be stored in database easily. Now Extenics based methodology has been applied in various fields [10-12]. So we try to find any new methodology to serve the designers based on Extenics and information technology. The purpose of this paper is to present a method to find out all possible suitable traditional Chinese elements for appearance designing and establish an information database to provide some reference and serve those foreign designers in need. The rest of the paper is organized as follows: In section 2 we introduce basic-element theory on Extenics and present some pictures of Traditional Chinese Culture. Section 3 gives a case study and show how the new methods work. In section 4 we conclude the paper and give future research directions. 2. Introduction on basic-element theory and selections of Traditional Chinese Culture elements 2.1. Introduction on Basic-Elements theory According to the Extenics[9], its Basic-element theory defines basic elements of matter-element (Physical existence),, affair-element (events and actions) and relation-element for modeling the information. One dimensional basic-element is an ordered triad composed of the element name, the characteristics and its measures, denoted by R= (N, c, v) as matter-element, I = (d, b, u) as event-element and relation-element Q = (s, a, w). As the matter-element R= (N, c, v) is an ordered triad composed of matter, from its characteristics and measures, we can develop new concepts as the extensibilities of one of the three sub-elements in the triad. It provides formalized languages that describe designing elements and other information. The basic-element theory can guide us to collect information and think in a systematical way. Dynamic matter with multiple characteristics can be expressed as Om(), t cm 1, vm 1() t cm2, vm2( t) Mt ( ) ( Om( t), Cm, Vm( t)) cmn, vmn( t) As to a given matter, it has corresponding measure value about any characteristic, which is unique at any moment as shown in equation (1). The building of basic elements base can help us to thinking in multidimensions by using matters multi-attributes and interactive relations among them. (1) 2.2. Matter- element of symbols represent Traditional Chinese Culture The following are the main categories and classic patterns that can best represent traditional Chinese culture in external designing of products. Traditional animal totems and new ones: dragon, lion, monkey (the Monkey King), panda (the Kung Fu Panda), and the twelve Zodiac Heads, et al.

3 Haotian Li et al. / Procedia Computer Science 91 ( 2016 ) Botanical ones: plum blossoms, orchid, bamboo, chrysanthemum, pine and peony flowers, et al. Architecture patterns: marble pillars, the Forbidden City, corbiestep (Hu style), et al. Objects: blue-and-white porcelain, the city of Jinde, the Terra-Cotta Warriors, Jade Goddess of Mercy, Maitreya Buddha, Chinese zither, Guqin (Chinese lyre), silk, et al. Patterns: auspicious cloud, the Sun-god, tao-tie pattern, wood grain, Chinese Calligraphy, part of ancient paintings ( for example, Riverside Scene During the Qingming Festival), Chinese brush landscape paintings, paper-cutting patterns, fireworks, red lantern and embroidery, et al. Color: red, blue-and-white, golden ( the color of the roof of the Palace Museum), et al. Here are some reprehensive pictures of Traditional Chinese Culture as examples. Chinese handwriting by brush pen Huabiao The new year pictures propitious cloud symbol stamp woodcarving Painted pottery of warrior horsehead walls oracle bone inscriptions

4 1014 Haotian Li et al. / Procedia Computer Science 91 ( 2016 ) symmetrical building roof delicacy symbol Chinese lute Flying mural Blue and white porcelain lotus design Twelve zodiac Avatar The facial makeup in Beijing Opera Chinese knot red lantern

5 Haotian Li et al. / Procedia Computer Science 91 ( 2016 ) Vase with flower Ancient pottery pattern art of paper-cut the great wall Taiji diagram Ding, tripod made of bronze 2.3. Construction of Basic-Element Database for Traditional Chinese Culture Every symbol or picture can be described in basic element, and its attributes with all possible values can be listed. Take art of paper-cut as an example as following: art of paper-cut, orignal function, paste on the window color, red material, paper M 5 symbols, (fish, boy,lotus,phoenix,...) 2 transparency, (0.1,1) The information of M 5 can be saved in database. Its database Table of Basic-Element for Traditional Chinese Culture is listed as following: Table field Data type length descriptions memo Id char 8 ID of pictures or symbols in level 1 Primary Key, not NULL Pname char 40 Name of pictures or symbols not NULL Ptype int 2 Type id for picture or symbols NULL Pmemo vchar 80 Memory or other informations NULL Types of culture symbols Table field Data type length descriptions memo TId char 8 ID of picture or symbol type Primary Key, not NULL Tname char 40 Name of picture or symbol type not NULL Tdesc vchar 60 Descriptions for picture or symbol NULL type Tmemo vchar 80 Memory or other informations NULL Table of relations between culture symbols

6 1016 Haotian Li et al. / Procedia Computer Science 91 ( 2016 ) Table field Data type length descriptions memo Id char 8 ID of pictures or symbols in level 1 Primary Key, foreign Key, not NULL Pid char 8 Id of pictures or symbols in parent Primary Key, foreign level of level 1 Rmemo char 40 Memory or other informations of relations between pictures or symbols Key, not NULL NULL 3. Case Study Based on some elements above, we design a new product appearance for an air conditioner to take an example of how to use basic element base to express Traditional Chinese Culture. In this appearance design, we select two elements from our base which is one word (in English its meaning is wind) in Chinese handwriting by brush pen and some propitious cloud symbols. The clouds and wind can let the users think of cool wind from the blue sky. Here are other typical ideas of appearance design for this air conditioner with Chinese Cultural elements. 1) The structure of the air conditioner is like a Huabiao, wind flows out from the cloud symbols. 2) The structure of the air conditioner is like a Ding or tripod made of bronze wind flows out from the ears of Ding. 3) The figure of its appearance is a big stamp with lucky words. 4) The figure of its appearance is a woodcarving which is harmony for wood furniture. 5) The figure of its appearance is full of oracle bone inscriptions with the topic of cool wind or quotation from the ancient masters. 6) The figure of its appearance is a Flying mural. 7) The figure of its appearance is Blue and white porcelain. 8) The figure of its appearance is a lotus design with green leaf. 9) The figure of its appearance is some facial makeups in Beijing Opera. 10) The figure of its appearance is one or two Chinese knots. 11) The figure of its appearance is a red lantern which can light on or off. 12) The figure of its appearance is an Ancient pottery pattern. 13) The figure of its appearance is Vase with flowers. And many other ideas with two or three elements combine together which not list one by one. Fig. 1 appearance of an air conditioner with elements of Traditional Chinese Culture

7 Haotian Li et al. / Procedia Computer Science 91 ( 2016 ) Conclusions and Future Research Directions In this paper we present an method based on Extenics to collect culture elements for appearance design in industry, and select about 30 pictures as the representative sample of Traditional Chinese Culture, then design table structures for further implement in data base. Our methods get good results in our first step designing practice. We will do some further work in the near future. Firstly, extend the establishment of our basic-element database of traditional Chinese cultural diagrams, which may contain more than 100 typical traditional Chinese cultural elements with pictures classified into different categories and labeled with key words. Secondly, The database will be put on the internet and be accessible to all the netizens around the world. They can also upload their own designs rich in Chinese cultural elements or other basic element pictures. The database is to be developed and perfected in the way of Wikipedia and at the same time the administrators will pay close attention to the property rights and the trading function of the design works. Moreover, there many other methods beside basic-element theory in Extenics, we will try to use transformations method and extension innovation method to improve the efficiency in industrial design. Acknowledgements This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (# ,# ) and Zhejiang Natural Science Fund (##LY16G010010, #LY14G010004). References [1] Li, X., Y. Shi & L. Zhang, From the information explosion to intelligent knowledge management, Beijing: Science Press [2] Zhu S., A knowledge Integration Based Design Thinking Model to Product Innovation, Proceedings of the International Conference on Advanced Design and Manufacture, [3] Zhu S., An Experimental Study on users and designers product form perceptual image, CAID&CG [4] Zhu S., An Ethnographic Study of Product Form Perception and Usability, NordDesign,August 16 18, 2006, Reykjavik, Iceland [5] Luo S., Zhu S., Ying F. and Zhang J., Statuesand progress of research on users ptacit knowledge in product design, Computer Integrated Manufacturing Systems, (04): [6] LUO S., ZHU S., Sun S. et al, Case study on user knowledge and design knowledge in product form design, China Mechanical Engineering, 2004,15(8): ,734 [7] LUO S., ZHU S., Sun S. et al, Case study of product conceptual design based on integrated knowledge, Journal of Computer Aided Design& Computer Graphics, 2004, 16(3): [8] Yang C, Li X, Research Progress in Extension Innovation Method and its Applications, Industrial Engineering Journal, 2012; 15(1): [9] Yang C, Cai W., Extenics: Theory, Method and Application, Science Press, Beijing [10] Li, X. H. Zhang, Z. Zhu, Z. Xiang, Z. Chen, Y. Shi, An Intelligent Transformation Knowledge Mining Method based on Extenics, Journal of Internet Technology, 2013, 14 (2): [11] Li X, Tian Y, Smarandache F, Alex R, An Extension Collaborative Innovation Model in the Context of Big Data, International Journal of Information Technology & Decision Making, 2015; 14(1): [12] Chen, A., Liu, W., Li, X., On the Systematic Approach to Enhance the Quality of Divergent Thinking in an Information Age,The International Symposium on Extenics and Innovation Methods, 2013,