Skip to main content
Book cover

Handbook of Grammatical Evolution pp 317–339Cite as

Design, Architecture, and Engineering with Grammatical Evolution

Abstract

Since its inception, Grammatical Evolution has had a rich history with design applications. The use of a formal grammar provides a convenient platform with which users can specify rules for design. Two main aspects of design evolution are the grammatical representation and the objective fitness evaluation.

The field of design representation has many strands, each with its own strengths and weaknesses for particular applications. An overview is given of four popular grammatical representations for design: Lindenmayer Systems, Shape Grammars, Higher Order Functions, and Graph Grammars, with examples of each.

The field of design is dominated by two often conflicting objectives: form and function. The disparity between the two is discussed: Interactive Evolutionary Design is examined in its capacity to provide a truly subjective fitness function for aesthetic form, while engineering applications of GE provide a basis for objective mathematically-based fitness evaluations. Finally, these two techniques can be combined to allow the designer to decide exactly how balance the optimisation and exploration of the process.

Keywords

  • Grammatical Evolution
  • Shape Grammars
  • Graph Grammars
  • Lindenmayer Systems
  • Grammatical Representations

These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution.

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-78717-6_13
  • Chapter length: 23 pages
  • Instant PDF download
  • Readable on all devices
  • Own it forever
  • Exclusive offer for individuals only
  • Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout
eBook
USD   129.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • ISBN: 978-3-319-78717-6
  • Instant PDF download
  • Readable on all devices
  • Own it forever
  • Exclusive offer for individuals only
  • Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout
Softcover Book
USD   169.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
Hardcover Book
USD   169.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
Learn about institutional subscriptions
Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Fig. 8
Fig. 9
Fig. 10
Fig. 11
Fig. 12

Notes

  1. 1.

    Note that a single objective can be used when engineering constraints are implemented, as detailed in Sect. 3.2.1.

References

  1. D. Beaumont, S. Stepney, Grammatical evolution of L-systems, in IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation, 2009. CEC’09 (IEEE, New York, 2009), pp. 2446–2453

    Google Scholar 

  2. British Standards Institution, BS 449-2: 1969. The structural use of steel in building (1969)

    Google Scholar 

  3. British Standards Institution, BS 5950-1: 2000. Structural use of steelwork in building (2000)

    Google Scholar 

  4. J. Byrne, M. Fenton, E. Hemberg, J. McDermott, M. O’Neill, E. Shotton, C. Nally, Combining structural analysis and multi-objective criteria for evolutionary architectural design, in European Conference on the Applications of Evolutionary Computation (Springer, Berlin, 2011), pp. 204–213

    Google Scholar 

  5. J. Byrne, E. Hemberg, A. Brabazon, M. O’Neill, A local search interface for interactive evolutionary architectural design, in International Conference on Evolutionary and Biologically Inspired Music and Art (Springer, Berlin, 2012), pp. 23–34

    Google Scholar 

  6. J. Byrne, E. Hemberg, M. O’Neill, A. Brabazon, A methodology for user directed search in evolutionary design. Genet. Program Evolvable Mach. 14(3), 287–314 (2013)

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  7. J. Byrne, P. Cardiff, A. Brabazon, M. O’Neill, Evolving parametric aircraft models for design exploration and optimisation. Neurocomputing 142, 39–47 (2014)

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  8. J. Byrne, P. Cardiff, A. Brabazon, M. O’Neill, Evolving an aircraft using a parametric design system, in International Conference on Evolutionary and Biologically Inspired Music and Art (Springer, Berlin, 2014), pp. 119–130

    Google Scholar 

  9. J. Byrne, M. Fenton, E. Hemberg, J. McDermott, M. O’Neill, Optimising complex pylon structures with grammatical evolution. Inf. Sci. 316, 582–597 (2015)

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  10. K. Deb, A. Pratap, S. Agarwal, T. Meyarivan, A fast and elitist multiobjective genetic algorithm: NSGA-II. IEEE Trans. Evol. Comput. 6(2), 182–197 (2002)

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  11. B. Delaunay, Sur la sphere vide. Izv. Akad. Nauk SSSR, Otdelenie Matematicheskii i Estestvennyka Nauk 7(793–800), 1–2 (1934)

    Google Scholar 

  12. H. Ehrig, Introduction to the algebraic theory of graph grammars (a survey), in International Workshop on Graph Grammars and Their Application to Computer Science (Springer, Berlin, 1978), pp. 1–69

    Google Scholar 

  13. M. Fenton, Analysis of timber structures created using a GE-based architectural design tool. Master’s thesis, University College Dublin, Ireland, 2010

    Google Scholar 

  14. M. Fenton, C. McNally, J. Byrne, E. Hemberg, J. McDermott, M. O’Neill, Automatic innovative truss design using grammatical evolution. Autom. Constr. 39, 59–69 (2014)

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  15. M. Fenton, C. McNally, J. Byrne, E. Hemberg, J. McDermott, M. O’Neill, Discrete planar truss optimization by node position variation using grammatical evolution. IEEE Trans. Evol. Comput. 20(4), 577–589 (2016)

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  16. S.B. Foundation, Blender 3D, 2009, http://www.blender.org/

  17. J.S. Gero, Creativity, emergence and evolution in design. Knowl.-Based Syst. 9(7), 435–448 (1996)

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  18. J.R. Gloudemans, P.C. Davis, P.A. Gelhausen, A rapid geometry modeller for conceptual aircraft, in 34th Aerospace Sciences Meeting and Exhibit, Reno, NV (1996), pp. 15–18

    Google Scholar 

  19. E. Hemberg, J. McDermott, PonyGE, 2011, https://github.com/jmmcd/ponyge

  20. M. Hemberg, U.-M. O’Reilly, GENR8 - using grammatical evolution in a surface design tool, in GECCO (2002), pp. 120–123

    Google Scholar 

  21. M. Hemberg, U.-M. O’Reilly, Extending grammatical evolution to evolve digital surfaces with GENR8, in European Conference on Genetic Programming (Springer, Berlin, 2004), pp. 299–308

    Google Scholar 

  22. M. Hemberg, U.-M. O’Reilly, Geometry as a substitute for structural analysis in generative design tools, 2005

    Google Scholar 

  23. M. Hemberg, U.-M. O’Reilly, P. Nordin, et al. GENR8 - a design tool for surface generation, in GECCO Late Breaking Papers, pp160–167, San Francisco (2001), pages 9–11

    Google Scholar 

  24. M. Hemberg, U.-M. O’Reilly, A. Menges, K. Jonas, M. Goncalves, S. Fuchs, Exploring generative growth and evolutionary computation for architectural design. Art of Artificial Evolution (Springer, Heidelberg 2006)

    Google Scholar 

  25. M. Hemberg, U.-M. O’Reilly, A. Menges, K. Jonas, M. da Costa Gonçalves, S.R. Fuchs, GENR8: architects’ experience with an emergent design tool, in The Art of Artificial Evolution (Springer, Berlin, 2008), pp. 167–188

    Google Scholar 

  26. G.S. Hornby, J.B. Pollack, The advantages of generative grammatical encodings for physical design, in Proceedings of the 2001 Congress on Evolutionary Computation, 2001, vol. 1 (IEEE, New York, 2001), pp. 600–607

    Google Scholar 

  27. J. Hughes, Why functional programming matters. Comput. J. 32(2), 98–107 (1989)

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  28. A. Jordanous, Evaluating evaluation: assessing progress in computational creativity research, in Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Computational Creativity (ICCC-11). Mexico City, Mexico (2011), pp. 102–107

    Google Scholar 

  29. S. Le, San Le’s Free Finite Element Analysis (SLFFEA) (2008), http://slffea.sourceforge.net/

  30. A. Lindenmayer, Mathematical models for cellular interactions in development I. filaments with one-sided inputs. J. Theor. Biol. 18(3), 280–299 (1968)

    Google Scholar 

  31. J. McDermott, Graph grammars as a representation for interactive evolutionary 3d design, in International Conference on Evolutionary and Biologically Inspired Music and Art (Springer, Berlin, 2012), pp. 199–210

    Google Scholar 

  32. J. McDermott, Graph grammars for evolutionary 3d design. Genet. Program Evolvable Mach. 14(3), 369–393 (2013)

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  33. J. McDermott, E. Hemberg, Logo design by grammatical evolution of L-Systems. GECCO art competition entry (2011)

    Google Scholar 

  34. J. McDermott, J. Byrne, J.M. Swafford, M. O’Neill, A. Brabazon, Higher-order functions in aesthetic EC encodings, in 2010 IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation (CEC) (IEEE, New York, 2010), pp. 1–8

    Google Scholar 

  35. J. McDermott, J.M. Swafford, M. Hemberg, J. Byrne, E. Hemberg, M. Fenton, C. McNally, E. Shotton, M. O’Neill, String-rewriting grammars for evolutionary architectural design. Environ. Plann. B. Plann. Des. 39(4), 713–731 (2012)

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  36. S. Moaveni, Finite Element Analysis Theory and Application with ANSYS (Pearson Education India, New Delhi, 2008)

    Google Scholar 

  37. S. Mullins, J. R. Rinderle, Grammatical approaches to engineering design, part I: an introduction and commentary. Res. Eng. Des. 2(3), 121–135 (1991)

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  38. K. Murawski, T. Arciszewski, K. De Jong, Evolutionary computation in structural design. Eng. Comput. 16(3), 275–286 (2000). ISSN 1435-5663. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/PL00013716

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  39. M. Nicolau, D. Costelloe, Using grammatical evolution to parameterise interactive 3d image generation, in European Conference on the Applications of Evolutionary Computation (Springer, Berlin, 2011), pp. 374–383

    Google Scholar 

  40. F. Obermeyer, Jenn3D for visualizing coxeter polytopes, 2010, http://www.math.cmu.edu/~fho/jenn/

  41. M. O’Neil, C. Ryan, Grammatical Evolution (Springer, Berlin, 2003)

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  42. M. O’Neill, A. Brabazon, Evolving a logo design using lindenmayer systems, postscript & grammatical evolution, in IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation, 2008. CEC 2008. (IEEE World Congress on Computational Intelligence) (IEEE, New York, 2008), pp. 3788–3794

    Google Scholar 

  43. M. O’Neill, E. Hemberg, C. Gilligan, E. Bartley, J. McDermott, A. Brabazon, GEVA: grammatical evolution in Java. ACM SIGEVOlution 3(2), 17–22 (2008)

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  44. M. O’Neill, J.M. Swafford, J. McDermott, J. Byrne, A. Brabazon, E. Shotton, C. McNally, M. Hemberg, Shape grammars and grammatical evolution for evolutionary design, in Proceedings of the 11th Annual Conference on Genetic and Evolutionary Computation (ACM, New York, 2009), pp. 1035–1042

    Google Scholar 

  45. M. O’Neill, J. McDermott, J.M. Swafford, J. Byrne, E. Hemberg, A. Brabazon, E. Shotton, C. McNally, M. Hemberg, Evolutionary design using grammatical evolution and shape grammars: designing a shelter. Int. J. Des. Eng. 3(1), 4–24 (2010)

    Google Scholar 

  46. U.-M. O’Reilly, M. Hemberg, Integrating generative growth and evolutionary computation for form exploration. Genet. Program Evolvable Mach. 8(2), 163–186 (2007)

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  47. A. Ortega, A.A. Dalhoum, M. Alfonseca, Grammatical evolution to design fractal curves with a given dimension. IBM J. Res. Dev. 47(4), 483–493 (2003)

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  48. P. Prusinkiewicz, J. Hanan, Lindenmayer Systems, Fractals, and Plants, vol. 79 (Springer Science & Business Media, Berlin, 2013)

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  49. J.R. Rinderle, Grammatical approaches to engineering design, part II: melding configuration and parametric design using attribute grammars. Res. Eng. Des. 2(3), 137–146 (1991)

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  50. F. Rothlauf, M. Oetzel, On the locality of grammatical evolution, in European Conference on Genetic Programming (Springer, Berlin, 2006), pp. 320–330

    Google Scholar 

  51. G. Stiny, Introduction to shape and shape grammars. Environ. Plann. B. Plann. Des. 7(3), 343–351 (1980)

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  52. G. Stiny, J. Gips, Shape grammars and the generative specification of painting and sculpture, in IFIP Congress (2), vol. 2 (1971)

    Google Scholar 

  53. H. Takagi, Interactive evolutionary computation: fusion of the capabilities of EC optimization and human evaluation. Proc. IEEE 89(9), 1275–1296 (2001). ISSN 0018-9219. https://doi.org/10.1109/5.949485

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  54. C.M. Vogel, J. Cagan, P. Boatwright, The Design of Things to Come: How Ordinary People Create Extraordinary Products (Wharton School Publishing, Upper Saddle River, 2005)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

This research is based upon works supported by Science Foundation Ireland under grant 13/IA/1850.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Data Science and Machine Learning Group, Corvil Ltd, Dublin, Ireland

    Michael Fenton

  2. Computer Vision Research Group, Intel Ltd, Leixlip, County Kildare, Ireland

    Jonathan Byrne

  3. Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL), MIT, Boston, MA, USA

    Erik Hemberg

Authors
  1. Michael Fenton
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Jonathan Byrne
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Erik Hemberg
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science and Information Systems, University of Limerick, Castletroy, Limerick, Ireland

    Conor Ryan

  2. School of Business, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland

    Prof. Michael O'Neill

  3. Department of Computer Science and Information Systems, University of Limerick, Castletroy, Limerick, Ireland

    JJ Collins

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

Copyright information

© 2018 Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature

About this chapter

Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Fenton, M., Byrne, J., Hemberg, E. (2018). Design, Architecture, and Engineering with Grammatical Evolution. In: Ryan, C., O'Neill, M., Collins, J. (eds) Handbook of Grammatical Evolution. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78717-6_13

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78717-6_13

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-78716-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-78717-6

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)