Statics-Sensitive Layout of Planar Quadrilateral Meshes

Rationalization of architectural freeform structures using planar quadrilateral (PQ) meshes has received rising interest in recent years, facilitated mainly by the introduction of algorithms which are capable of generating such. These algorithms involve an optimization which is, up to now, motivated purely geometrically and accounts for aspects of feasibility, visual appearance, and approximation of the architectural design. Practitioners would wish to add stiffness to the objectives of the layout process. This paper presents a simple but effective statics-aware initialization procedure for the layout of PQ meshes approximating a given freeform surface. We focus on the class of surface structures with membrane-like load bearing behavior, quite regularly encountered in architecture. By compliance analysis of two representative examples, we demonstrate that this specific type of initialization has indeed favorable impact on the mechanical properties of the final PQ mesh.

BibTeX Entry:

@inproceedings{schiftner_10_SPQ,
author = "Alexander Schiftner and Jonathan Balzer",
title = "Statics-Sensitive Layout of Planar Quadrilateral Meshes",
booktitle = "Advances in Architectural Geometry",
year = "2010",
}

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