Issue No. 03 - May-June (1997 vol. 17)
DOI Bookmark: http://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/38.586017
This article describes a new system for creative 3D modeling. The goal is to provide a system not for effectively mimicking existing natural or machine-tooled shapes but for exploring and developing new types of shapes that would be difficult to develop or realize without computer assistance. Thus, rather than computerize an existing 3D medium, the author develops a new technique for creating shapes based on results from the highly successful field of sound synthesis. He identifies three principles important to the development of sound synthesizers and shows that they can be usefully mapped directly into 3D geometry. This mapping permits developing a set of modules and a single data type carried by the wires between modules. The result is a new system, a shape synthesizer, capable of creating a rich variety of shapes, particularly when the technique of shape modulation is used.
A. S. Glassner, "A Shape Synthesizer," in IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, vol. 17, no. , pp. 40-51, 1997.