First glimpse of the doorway, the theory and specification of mechanical product modeling design

The modeling design of mechanical products belongs to the category of “industrial design”. Industrial design is a new frontier discipline in modern times. It is a creative design that applies engineering technology and artistic means to design and shape the image of products, and finally unifies it in the function, structure, process, agreeableness, visual communication and market relationship of products, so as to achieve the harmony between man, machine (product) and environment. With the advance of the times, the development of science and technology, the improvement and change of people’s aesthetic concept, the modeling design of mechanical products, like other industrial products, is constantly developing and changing to a high level. There are many factors affecting product modeling design. However, the modeling design of modern products mainly emphasizes meeting the needs of people and society, making beautiful, elegant, exquisite and pleasant products for people’s life and production activities, and improving the level of material civilization and spiritual civilization of the whole society. This is the main basis and starting point of modern industrial product modeling design.

1. The times of mechanical product modeling

People are in different times and have different spiritual aspirations. When the modeling image of mechanical products has the spiritual significance of the times and conforms to the characteristics of the times, these “shape”, “color” and “quality” with special appeal will show the characteristics of the times that the products reflect the scientific level of the times and contemporary aesthetic concepts, which is the modernity of the products.

In the 1940s, before and after the end of World War II, due to the turbulence and suffering brought by the war, people had a heavy heart and hoped for a peaceful and safe environment. Therefore, the mechanical products at that time mostly adopted the arc shape with a soft feeling. There was a fashion for “streamlined” products, which formed the characteristics of industrial modeling in that era.

In the 1950s, due to human physiology and World War II and other reasons, people were tired of the streamlined shape with bloated and tension, and longed for some peace and relaxation visually and psychologically; The modeling of industrial products conforms to the ideas of most people (of course, the development of science and technology has gradually broken the monopoly of “streamline”), and gradually straightens the curve, so there is an era modeling with the characteristics of straight line increasing curvature.

From 1960s to 1970s, due to the further development of science and technology, especially the emergence of a large number of new materials and processes, the product modeling has the possibility of refining, simplicity, affirmation and straightness of change in the manufacturing process; Therefore, the square and straight rectangle and the trapezoidal shape of breaking the unity of square and straight with oblique breaking and static breaking appear, which enlivens the atmosphere of visual art.

After the 1980s, due to the rapid changes of large-scale integrated circuits, numerical control, microcomputer, mechatronics and other technical forms, new materials and processes such as plastic electroplating and engineering injection molding emerge one after another, and the industry shows a larger and higher development trend. In this pluralistic situation, people’s aesthetic requirements and standards from reason to concept are undergoing or will undergo a qualitative change. As a product modeling, it truly reflects people’s bold and persistent pursuit of high technology. The selection of geometric modeling makes the layout and composition more concise and lively, rational and abstract, and the diversified expression full of geometric beauty and mathematical beauty, which has naturally become the fashion of modern product modeling.

From the color analysis of products, in the 1950s after World War II, people were eager for stability and peace, so at that time, people liked the dark and quiet blue and green cold tones as the color of industrial product modeling. From 1960s to 1970s, people’s life was relatively stable, so the color tone gradually changed from dark to bright, from cold to warm, and from monotonous to colorful. In recent years, with the development of aerospace industry, people try their best to reflect their strong pursuit and love for interstellar communication through product modeling color. They like “cosmic colors” such as iron gray, silver gray and silver black with metallic luster.

2. Product color design and proportion design

In product modeling design, two principles of color and proportion design must be emphatically considered.

2.1 color design

In the image of the whole product, color first acts on people’s visual feeling, which can be said to be “preemptive”. If the product color is handled well, it can coordinate or make up for some deficiencies in the modeling, make it more beautiful and perfect, and it is easy to win the favor of consumers and get twice the result with half the effort. On the contrary, if the color of the product is not handled properly, it will not only affect the exertion of the product function and destroy the overall beauty of the product shape, but also easily destroy people’s working mood, make people feel boring, dull, indifferent and even depressed, disperse the attention of the operator and reduce the work efficiency. Therefore, in the modeling of products, color design is an important work that can not be ignored, and the choice of color is very important.

Hue is the overall color feeling of industrial products at a glance. It can show liveliness and liveliness, fineness and solemnity, indifference, boredom, kindness, lightness and so on. The choice of hue should be particularly careful. Generally, it can be determined artistically according to the purpose, function, structure, timeliness of the product and the likes and dislikes of users. The standard for determination is that the color and shape are consistent, the shape is assisted by color, and the shape and color are bright. For example: the purpose and function of the aircraft is to carry passengers and objects at high altitude and high speed, so its main tone color is generally handled as brilliant and high-color silver white, which can easily make people feel the lightness and fineness of the aircraft. This is that the shape and color are consistent, and the color contributes to the shape; If, on the contrary, the aircraft is painted black and gray, it is easy to make people doubt whether it is bulky enough to fly. This is that the color destroys the shape and the tone is chosen incorrectly. The determination of hue generally refers to the following points:

 (1) Warm colors have a warm effect, and cold colors will make people feel cold.

 (2) taking the warm color with high chroma as the main tone can make people feel exciting and excited, and taking the cold color with low chroma as the main tone can make people think calmly.

 (3) The bright tone is light and bright, and the low bright tone is deep and solemn.

In short, hue is a color design element that dominates and unifies the overall situation in the overall color feeling.

2.2 scale design

The correct proportion and scale are the basis and framework of perfect modeling. Generally speaking, as long as the proportion does not violate the product function and material and technical conditions, it can take a variety of change combination forms to show the quantitative change relationship between the whole and part or between part and part, such as size, thickness and length. The scale is relatively fixed, which specifically refers to the degree and range of adaptation between the size of the modeling object and the size of the human body or a certain standard. If the shape has only good proportion and no correct fixed scale to restrict, the design will certainly fail. Therefore, the correct order of modeling design should first determine the scale, and then determine and adjust the proportion of modeling objects according to the scale. For example, the guardrail of the bridge, the shield of the machine tool, the trunk of the car, the seat of the bicycle and the pen holder of the fountain pen should first consider the scale of the shape, that is, the length, width, height and diameter of the human body, and then the proportion and detail adjustment of the shape.

The proportion and scale of modeling objects should be reasonably arranged and coordinated according to various factors affecting the combination. The three basic factors of fashion are material and technical. The modeling object with coordinated proportion is not only beautiful, but also reasonable to use, which can give people a comfortable and cordial feeling. Several proportions commonly used in mechanical product modeling are:

 (1) , golden section

The golden section has been recognized as the most beautiful scale since ancient times. The composition of many beautiful scenery in nature is reflected by the golden section ratio. The optimization method popularized by Chinese mathematician Hua Luogeng is also 0.618. The golden section proportion adopts the preferred number of 0.618 as the base, so that the ratio of the two segments constituting the proportion is 0.618. This ratio is in line with human visual characteristics and the internal scale of the human body. Its proportion is beautiful and harmonious, full of changes, and has a certain law and sense of stability.

(2) . root mean square ratio

If the short side of a rectangle is made to be 1, and these irrational sequences are applied to the long side design, there will be a very strict, natural and regular repetition reflected in the geometry, that is, the root mean square ratio. This proportional relationship has a harmonious and coordinated dynamic equilibrium beauty, so it is widely used.

 (3) Modulus theory

Modularity theory is the viewpoint of a school of art modeling. They believe that the modeling of beauty is derived from one or several modules from the whole to the part and from the part to the detail. The size series containing common scale factors is an internal law. Starting from the absolute scale of human body, it selects four basic points of human hand raising height, head height, navel height and hand dropping height (they are 2260 mm, 1830 mm, 1130 mm and 860 mm respectively). After inserting the corresponding other values, the following two sets of Fibonacci series values are formed: (single digit mm)

The first set is… 1830, 1130, 700, 430, 270, 170… Called red ruler

The second set is… 2 260, 1 400, 860, 530, 330, 200… Called blue ruler

These values not only contain the restrictive relationship of the middle value ratio, but also basically conform to various scales of human activity range, which can achieve the harmony of man-machine relationship. Therefore, modulus theory is a practical design mode of body proportion.

3. Prospect of mechanical product modeling and “concurrent engineering”

For quite a long time in the future, more simple and purified, more concise, more lively, more rigorous structure and more exquisite technology. The pursuit of rational beauty is the main symbol of mechanical product modeling. The line type will use more straight line or large curvature circular arc surface plus small circular corner. The colors will be mainly light and bright bright low color cold and warm colors. For a machine, its main color will be “two sets of colors” or “three sets of colors”, breaking the gray or “Kaleidoscope” color style of the past.

With the rapid development of science and technology and the continuous improvement of human cultural level, the life cycle of modern industrial product modeling is becoming shorter and shorter. Generally, the modeling life cycle of machine tool products is 5-10 years, while that of electronic and daily-use machinery products is less than 2-3 years, and the speed of pushing through the old and bringing forth the new is faster and faster. Especially for household appliances, almost no major changes are made to the internal movement, so they are pushed out again with new modeling. In such a high-speed product renewal competition, as the inseparable main link of modern product design – modeling design, structural design and mold design, according to the traditional working practice, the designers of these three majors and departments usually work together to complete the task of industrial product design. However, the speed of such design is too slow to adapt to the new situation of today’s rapid development.

Foreign countries are now widely implementing the design integration mode according to a new “concurrent engineering” point of view. The view of concurrent engineering holds that the related problems in the modeling, structure and mold design of industrial products occur at the same time rather than in sequence. They are complex, closely intertwined and restrict each other, forming a “concurrent engineering”. In order to solve these problems quickly and scientifically, designers of modeling, structure and mold should learn, master and be familiar with each other’s work objectives, contents and key points, and combine their own work to coordinate and synthesize one company, so as to try to reduce some design links and infeasible wrong design, so as to improve our work quality and economic benefits.