Showing papers on "Page layout published in 2021"

PowerSynth Design Automation Flow for Hierarchical and Heterogeneous 2.5-D Multichip Power Modules

Abstract: As a critical energy-conversion system component, power semiconductor modules and their layout optimization has been identified as a crucial step in achieving the maximum performance and density for wide bandgap technologies (i.e., GaN and SiC). New packaging technologies are also introduced to produce reliable and efficient multichip power module (MCPM) designs to push the current limits. The complexity of the MCPM layout is surpassing the capability of a manual, iterative design process to produce an optimum design with agile development requirements. An electronic design automation tool called PowerSynth has been introduced with on-going research toward enhanced capabilities to speed up the optimized MCPM layout design process. As a part of this continuing research, in PowerSynth v1.9, a constraint-aware layout engine has been developed, which enables integrating heterogeneous components, handling complex geometry, exploring a larger solution space, improved success rate, and providing options for multiobjective optimization algorithms. The layout engine is generic, scalable, and efficient in performing electro-thermal optimizations on both 2-D and 2.5-D power modules. To validate these enhanced design capabilities, a 2.5-D full-bridge power module layout is designed, optimized, fabricated, and tested with measurement results matching closely with model prediction. This result closes the loop in the power electronics design process with an experimentally validated module design automation flow.

An algorithm for random generation of admissible horizontal alignments for optimum layout design

Abstract: This work deals with the design of horizontal alignments (HAs) for its application in intelligent civil systems. Two consecutive tasks are performed: the random generation of admissible ho...

Integrated framework of process mining and simulation–optimization for pod structured clinical layout design

Abstract: This paper proposes a three-phase framework to leverage hospital tracking data of patient visits while designing healthcare layouts with pod structures. The first phase proposes a process mining algorithm that modifies the Probabilistic Determining Finite Automata (PDFA) with Particle Swarm Optimization (PDFA-PSO) algorithm to predict the significant patient workflows from hospital historical data. The second phase employs simulation modeling to solve a right-sizing problem to determine the optimal size of the layout pods and the frequency of flows between the different clinical locations. The final phase uses an Unequal Area Facility Layout Problem (UAFLP) to determine the layout typology. The proposed process mining and simulation model are vital steps to measure the frequency between spaces and pod areas, which are needed to solve the UAFLP for outpatient settings. The proposed framework is validated using a case study for a renovation project of a large heart and vascular clinic in the US. The research shows that process mining is an efficient tool to extract a subset of significant patient pathways among 90 pathway variants and build a more realistic simulation that reflects behavioral and operational aspects. The research shows that the PSO algorithm is efficient in estimating the PDFA parameters and improving the prediction accuracy of the extracted patient pathways. In addition, the research shows that Genetic Algorithm with Placement Staretegy is an efficient algorithm for layout automation.

Virtual reality game level layout design for real environment constraints

Abstract: This paper presents an optimization-based approach for designing virtual reality game level layouts, based on the layout of a real environment. Our method starts by asking the user to define the shape of the real environment and the obstacles (e.g., furniture) located in it. Then, by representing a game level as an assembly of chunks and defining the game level layout design decisions in cost terms (mapping, fitting, variations, and accessibility) in a total cost function, our system automatically synthesizes a game level layout that fulfills the real environment layout and its constraints as well as the user-defined design decisions. To evaluate the proposed method, a user study was conducted. The results indicated that the proposed method: (1) enhanced the levels of presence; (2) enhanced the levels of involvement of participants in the virtual environment; and (3) reduced the fear of collision with the real environment and its constraints. Limitations and future research directions are also discussed.

On the track of visual style: a diachronic study of page composition in comics and its functional motivation:

Abstract: Page layout is one of the most salient features of graphic novels and comics that readers encounter: even before engaging with specific content, an overall impression of the page composition will h...

Layout design and application of 4D-printing bio-inspired structures with programmable actuators

Abstract: Four-dimensional (4D) printing is an advanced form of three-dimensional (3D) printing with controllable and programmable shape transformation over time. Actuators are used as a controlling factor with multi-stage shape recovery, with emerging opportunities to customize the mechanical properties of bio-inspired structures. The print pattern of shape memory polymer (SMP) fibers strongly affects the achievable resolution, and consequently influences several other physical and mechanical properties of fabricated actuators. However, the deformations of bio-inspired structures due to actuator layout are more complex because of the presence of the coupling of multi-directional strain. In this study, the initial structure was designed from closed-shell behavior and divided into a general unit and actuator unit, the latter responsible for driving the transformation. Mutual stress confrontation between the actuator and the general unit was considered in the layout thermodynamic model, in order to eliminate the transformation produced by the uncontrolled shape memory behavior of the general unit. Three critical and effective strategies for the layout design of actuators were proposed and then applied to achieve the desired accurate deformation of 3D-printed bilayer structures. Finally, the proposed approach was validated and adopted for fabricating a complex shell-like gripper structure.

A generative design approach for modular construction in congested urban areas

Abstract: Modular construction is widely adopted and used in the construction industry to improve construction performance with respect to both efficiency and productivity. The evaluation of design options for modular construction can be iterative, and thus automation is required to develop design alternatives. This research aims to explore the potential of utilizing the generative design approach to automate modular construction for residential building structures in urban areas such as New York City.,The proposed research methodology is investigated for a systematic approach to parametrize design parameters for modular construction layout design as well as incorporate design rules/parameters into modularizing design layouts in a Building Information Modeling (BIM) environment. Based on current building codes and necessary inputs by the user, the proposed approach enables providing recommendations in a generative design method and optimizes construction processes by performing analytical calculations.,The generative design has been found to be efficient in generating layout designs for modular construction based on parametric design. The integration of BIM and generative design can allow industry practitioners to fast generate design layout with evaluations from constructability perspectives.,This paper has proposed a new approach of incorporating generative design with BIM technologies to solve module layout generations by considering design and constructability constraints. The method can be further extended for evaluating modular construction design from manufacturability and assembly perspectives.

Motion Planning for Convertible Indoor Scene Layout Design

Abstract: We present a system for designing indoor scenes with convertible furniture layouts. Such layouts are useful for scenarios where an indoor scene has multiple purposes and requires layout conversion, such as merging multiple small furniture objects into a larger one or changing the locus of the furniture. We aim at planning the motion for the convertible layouts of a scene with the most efficient conversion process. To achieve this, our system first establishes object-level correspondences between the layout of a given source and that of a reference to compute a target layout, where the objects are re-arranged in the source layout with respect to the reference layout. After that, our system initializes the movement paths of objects between the source and target layouts based on various mechanical constraints. A joint space-time optimization is then performed to program a control stream of object translations, rotations, and stops, under which the movements of all objects are efficient and the potential object collisions are avoided. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our system through various design examples of multi-purpose, indoor scenes with convertible layouts.

Modeling layout design for multiple-view visualization via Bayesian inference

Abstract: Layout design for multiple-view visualization (MV) concerns primarily how to arrange views in layouts that are geometrically and topologically plausible. Guidelines for MV layout design suggest considerations on various design factors, including view (e.g., bar and line charts), viewport (e.g., mobile vs. desktop), and coordination (e.g., exploration vs. comparison), along with expertise and preference of the designer. Recent studies have revealed the diverse space of MV layout design via statistical analysis on empirical MVs, yet neglect the effects of those design factors. To address the gap, this work proposes to model the effects of design factors on MV layouts via Bayesian probabilistic inference. Specifically, we access three important properties of MV layout, i.e., maximum area ratio and weighted average aspect ratio as geometric metrics, and layout topology as a topological metric. We update the posterior probability of layout metrics given design factors by penetrating MVs from recent visualization publications. The analyses reveal many insightful MV layout design patterns, such as views in coordination type of comparison exhibit more balanced area ratio, while those for exploration are more scattered. This work makes a prominent starting point for a thorough understanding of MV layout design patterns. On the basis, we discuss how practitioners can use Bayesian inference approach for future research on finer-annotated visualization datasets and more comprehensive design factors and properties.

Efficient multi-objective simulated annealing algorithm for interactive layout problems

Abstract: This paper presents an efficient simulated annealing algorithm for solving multi-objective layout problems where several rectangular components are placed, respecting non-overlap and non-protrusion constraints in the given space. Resolving layout problems can be very hard in some industrial cases because problems are over-constrained and computing feasible optimal layout designs are time consuming. In most practical problems, both real and virtual components exist. The virtual components represent the required accessible space allowing the user to access to the component. The virtual components can overlap with each other, while the overlap is not allowed for the real components. Considering the limited layout design space, the capacity of the layout problem is analyzed using constructive placing techniques. To explore the feasible layout space, a hybrid simulated annealing is proposed to determine the order of placement; then, a constructive placing strategy based on empty maximal space is developed. What’s more, an interactive visualization environment is introduced between the optimization and expert. The proposed algorithm is the first attempt to search feasible space of multi-objective layout design by constructive placing method.

Formal modelling of a sheet metal smart manufacturing system by using Petri nets and first-order predicate logic

Abstract: This study introduces a developed method to a smart computer-aided design/manufacturing (CAD/CAM) system, where layout design, process planning, and comprehensive computerized numerical control (CNC) code generation can be implemented to satisfy laser cutting holes, tapping, irregular and complicated profile processing, engraving, and burr back-scraping. The smart CAD/CAM(SCAM) system is developed as a commercial software product or application and firstly applied to flexible sheet metal machining center (BGL 130R). In this study, a formal modeling method involving Petri nets and first-order predicate logic is proposed to develop the smart manufacturing system. High-level Petri nets are employed to achieve the formal application architecture design of data flow for various functions, and the first-order logic used to represent the process plan is defined and deduced according to the machining methods. The developed system possesses the following characteristics: (1) a sound and complete deductive system to implement various types of trajectory planning, automatic generation, and validation of the CNC code; (2) a convenient design input environment and readiness for re-design and modification by adding specific design functions and using standard design procedures on a widely used CAD/CAM package; (3) helpful for designers in sheet metal layout designing, layout interference detection, process planning validation, preprocess manufacturing operation of CNC code generation, and autodefinition of storable file names; and (4) formal and simple in human–computer interaction, automatic and intelligent in process operations, and satisfactory in terms of the requirements of the flexible sheet metal machining center (BGL 130R).

Research on algorithms for control design of human–machine interface system using ML

Abstract: In recent years, progressive attention has been paid to the research of man–machine interface. In many fields of application software system development, experts have listed man–machine interface as one of the commands for the urgent research and advancement. This article has proposed the improvement to the man–machine interface system control design for the practical value of life, and has presented an approach for algorithms using Machine Learning. The method used in the paper includes the spatial layout of human–machine interface supported by the design cognition model and the use of Machine Learning algorithms. Based on Max–Min Ant System, the optimal path of ant construction is obtained, which is the optimal layout scheme. The experimental result in the paper shows that: with the support of the cognitive model, the cabin man–machine interface system control design method based on Genetic Algorithm-Ants Algorithm is obtained. The layout design principles were summarized by the cognitive model, and the layout optimization objective function was constructed according to each principle, and the problem of solving layout parties and cases was transformed into a combinatorial optimization problem. The form of fitness function, pheromone, and heuristic information for layout optimization was studied, and the algorithm of manual optimization process was implemented based on Genetic Algorithm and Ant Algorithm, in order to obtain a good optimization performance and time performance as a result. The practical value of the control design of man–machine interface system with the Machine Learning algorithm is proved.

Performance-driven Routing Methodology with Incremental Placement Refinement for Analog Layout Design

Abstract: Analog layout is often considered as a difficult task because many layout-dependent effects will impact final circuit performance. In the literature, many automation techniques have been proposed for analog placement and routing respectively. However, very few works are able to consider the two steps simultaneously to obtain the best performance and cost after layout. Most of the routing-aware placement techniques optimize the layout results based on an assumed routing result, which may be quite different to the final layout. In this work, we proposed an automatic two-step layout methodology for analog circuits to alleviate the performance loss during layout process. Instead of using a rough routing prediction during placement stage, a crossing-aware global routing technique is first performed to provide an accurate routing resource estimation of the given compact placement. Then, the improved CDL-based layout migration technique is adopted to do a fast adjustment on the placement and routing to reduce the difference between estimation and final layout while keeping the optimality of the given placement. As shown in the experimental results, the proposed methodology is able to improve the accuracy of routing resource estimation thus improving the final layout quality and circuit performance.

Heuristic-based approach to solve layout design and workers’ assignment problem in the cellular manufacturing system

Abstract: ABSTRACT The design process of a cellular manufacturing system (CMS) involves well-known NP-hard problems. Being an NP-hard, it is difficult to address these CMS-related problems optimally within a reasonable time. Therefore, this paper proposes a novel heuristic-based two-stage approach to tackle the CMS-related problems. In the first stage, a mathematical model is developed to concurrently solve cell formation and workers’ assignment problems (CFWAP). The worker’s selection is determined by their performance in operating a machine for a specific part, measured by the defect rate resulting from assigning the worker to a machine. The model’s objective is to minimize the weighted sum of the total inter-cell, intra-cell movements, operation, and defect costs. In the second stage, based on the output of the mathematical model in the first stage, a heuristic algorithm is developed to solve the problem related to the layout design of the cellular manufacturing system (LDCMS). The actual dimensions of machines and the aisle distances between them are considered in LDCMS to find out the best possible allocation of the machines and cells within the entire system. A comparison is conducted between numerical examples from the literature to show the efficiency and the validation of this two-stage heuristic approach. The results show that the proposed method can optimally tackle the aforementioned CMS-related problems within a reasonable time. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that integrates the CFWAP with LDCMS, considering all these practical and manufacturing features. Finally, it should be noted that the proposed approach has been applied as a real case study for a central workshop on die manufacturing for a food stove company in Egypt. The results depict a significant reduction in the company’s total associated costs by achieving up to 23% savings from applying the proposed method.

Fields of action towards automated facility layout design and optimization in factory planning – A systematic literature review

Abstract: In order to develop and establish a functional, integrated system for automated layout design that can be applied in practice, certain fields of action still need to be identified and solved. For this purpose, a systematic literature review is used to identify fields of action on the way to automated factory layout design and to derive recommendations for action. As a result, the need for action was identified in the areas of multicriteria optimization, the layout evaluation and selection process, the existing implemented algorithms and in the integration of the human planner. To make qualitative target criteria machine-interpretable was identified as the most important next step.

Two Generative Design Methods of Hospital Operating Department Layouts Based on Healthcare Systematic Layout Planning and Generative Adversarial Network

Abstract: With the increasing demands of health care, the design of hospital buildings has become increasingly demanding and complicated. However, the traditional layout design method for hospital is labor intensive, time consuming and prone to errors. With the development of artificial intelligence (AI), the intelligent design method has become possible and is considered to be suitable for the layout design of hospital buildings. Two intelligent design processes based on healthcare systematic layout planning (HSLP) and generative adversarial network (GAN) are proposed in this paper, which aim to solve the generation problem of the plane functional layout of the operating departments (ODs) of general hospitals. The first design method that is more like a mathematical model with traditional optimization algorithm concerns the following two steps: developing the HSLP model based on the conventional systematic layout planning (SLP) theory, identifying the relationship and flows amongst various departments/units, and arriving at the preliminary plane layout design; establishing mathematical model to optimize the building layout by using the genetic algorithm (GA) to obtain the optimized scheme. The specific process of the second intelligent design based on more than 100 sets of collected OD drawings includes: labelling the corresponding functional layouts of each OD plan; building image-to-image translation with conditional adversarial network (pix2pix) for training OD plane layouts, which is one of the most representative GAN models. Finally, the functions and features of the results generated by the two methods are analyzed and compared from an architectural and algorithmic perspective. Comparison of the two design methods shows that the HSLP and GAN models can autonomously generate new OD plane functional layouts. The HSLP layouts have clear functional area adjacencies and optimization goals, but the layouts are relatively rigid and not specific enough. The GAN outputs are the most innovative layouts with strong applicability, but the dataset has strict constraints. The goal of this paper is to help release the heavy load of architects in the early design stage and present the effectiveness of these intelligent design methods in the field of medical architecture.

Layout optimization of injection process by considering integrated resilience engineering: a fuzzy-DEA approach

Abstract: According to the impact of the layout design on the performance of high volumes production line, a single-row facility layout problem is considered in a process diagnosed as a bottleneck. In this r...

A Bacterial Foraging Optimization Algorithm for User Interface Layout Design in Complex Human-computer Interaction System

Abstract: The layout design of user interface (UI) is a key issue in making a better human-computer interaction system for complex system such as spacecraft or vehicles, which directly affects the information level, tactical performance and operational efficiency. Firstly, this study builds a model for the layout design of UI which concerns the importance and use frequency of the layout components. Then, an improved bacterial foraging optimization algorithm is proposed to solve the layout optimization problems, which include the process of chemotaxis, replicates and migration. The preliminary results showed the feasibility of the proposed method.

Continuous and Gradual Style Changes of Graphic Designs with Generative Model

Abstract: Creating a high-quality layout design from scratch is difficult for novices. Therefore, novices often consult the works of other skilled designers for ideas regarding layout designs. Researchers have previously investigated methods to support the layout design process; these works mainly focused on retrieval methods for similar layout designs, or refinement of existing layouts. To enhance user creativity in designing layouts, assistance is needed for exploring various designs. Herein, we propose a novel deep generative model that enables the generation of various layout designs and guarantees continuous and gradual changes in layouts, for effectively exploring graphic designs. Accordingly, we present an adversarial training method with dual critic networks; we trained our model by a public graphic design dataset. We developed another interaction method that allows the user to change the graphic designs between two different layout styles and categories parametrically. We demonstrated the efficacy of the proposed method in generating rich layout variations with representation of latent space by comparing the layout designs generated by our model with by an existing model.

An Innovative Approach for the Evaluation of the Web Page Impact Combining User Experience and Neural Network Score

Abstract: The proposed paper introduces an innovative methodology useful to assign intelligent scores to web pages. The approach is based on the simultaneous use of User eXperience (UX), Artificial Neural Network (ANN), and Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) algorithms, providing the web page scoring and taking into account outlier conditions to construct the training dataset. Specifically, the UX tool analyses different parameters addressing the score, such as navigation time, number of clicks, and mouse movements for page, finding possible outliers, the ANN are able to predict outliers, and the LSTM processes the web pages tags together with UX and user scores. The final web page score is assigned by the LSTM model corrected by the UX output and improved by the navigation user score. This final score is useful for the designer by suggesting the tags typologies structuring a new web page layout of a specific topic. By using the proposed methodology, the web designer is addressed to allocate contents in the web page layout. The work has been developed within a framework of an industry project oriented on the formulation of an innovative AI interface for web designers.

Interactive Design Optimization of Layout Problems

Abstract: Layout optimization plays an important role in the field of industrial engineering. The layout problem presented here involves the real and virtual rectangular components. The real components can be the devices or buildings depending on the application. The space of accessibility associated with the real component is virtual, which allows the user to access the real component in reality, such as facility maintenance. However, most of the layout problems are NP hard. The great complexity of layout problems increase the difficulty in finding a feasible layout design in a reasonable time. To resolve these problems, we propose a hybrid constructive placing strategy which makes the search of feasible designs easier. The multi-objective application presented in this study demonstrates the effectiveness and portability of the method. Since the number of optimal layout designs can be very large, a cluster approach is followed to group all similar solutions. First, the notion of pairwise similarity indicator is introduced to analyze the similarity among the optimized layout designs. Second, the visualization of the hierarchical clustering of similarity matrix is customized. Then for each design, the user can interact with it by locally modifying the position or rotation of the component. The interactivity helps the user evaluate performance of the designs and preferable results are typically achieved.