From Shape 1.0 to Shape 3.0
There is a huge amount of literature and research
that reflects the evolution of geometric modeling
over the last 60 years. Yet, how much intelligence
were these geometric models able to carry in these
decades? Frequently, intelligence is used in computer
science to characterize the degree to which
software can adapt, its degree of interactivity, and
the smartness of methods. For instance, the Web’s
evolution is described as a transition from Web
1.0 (basic settings of the Web itself), to Web 2.0
(characterized by a larger and more varied number
of interconnected objects), to Web 3.0 (where more
intelligence is embedded in the shared objects), up
to the future Web 4.0, which is predicted to go in
the direction of intelligent agents. The reason for
adopting the same markers used to document the
Web’s evolution when discussing 3D shape modeling
is that semantics will play a key role in bringing
about a true change in the way we access and
consume digital data and information.
Figure 2 illustrates the evolution from Shape
1.0 to Shape 3.0. For each of these phases, I indicate
and discuss a few milestones that document
important steps or achievements that indicate a
trend or a change of phase. The green color indicates
the reaching of what we may call maturity
of the phase.
The foundations of shape modeling date back to
1950, when pioneering research was done around
the mathematics needed to represent curves and
surfaces using a design-oriented framework.3
Following
an enormous push to modeling from the
CAD industry, the 1980s paper of Aristides A.G.
Requicha consolidated the geometry-only conceptual
approach to shape modeling, characterizing
the early phase of Shape 1.0.4
Requicha viewed the
modeling process as an abstraction pipeline that
connects the physical models, living in the minds of the designers, to representation models. The focus
was on the formalization of the mathematical
properties that the geometrical model had to
reflect. The emphasis was on ensuring the validity
of the digital models with respect to their physical
counterparts, motivated by the fast-developing
CAD field.