17 DESIGNING THREE DIMENSIONAL IMAGE GENERATOR CHUNG-LUN KUO AND ELLEN YI-LUEN DO Georgia Institute of Technology, USA keywords: mental imagery, design sketch, spatial ability 1. INTRODUCTION Do designers mentally capture the image in the design process? If so, to what degree can these mental images be transformed and interpreted into useful design information? Tis article discusses the characteristics of designers’ mental activities and proposes the use of mental images to generate design diagrams. Te proposed theoretical framework specifcally concerns the following issues: 1) can visual images be accessed and processed and what types of pro- cesses are needed to account for our ability to generate, maintain, transform, and inspect images (Kosslyn 1994)? 2) can visual images depict object proper- ties and spatial relations? and 3) what is the relation between visual image and spatial representation (Anderson 1999)? 2. THREE DIMENSIONAL IMAGE GENERATOR Figure 1 shows a proposed three dimensional image generator that would generate and transform mental images into design diagrams and act as a container where mental images can be documented, stored and edited. Te image generator would frst use scanning of MRI technology and event and scenario analysis with assisted interface such as headset, touch pad, for displaying of generated mental images. Short-term attention to recalled infor- mation (what might traditionally be called refection) might identify design problems and constraints. It can also identify new relations between stored information and develop references. By using mental imagery, we can simulate T. Tidafi and T. Dorta (eds) Joining Languages, Cultures and Visions: CAADFutures 2009 © PUM, 2009