A visual solid modeling system using a plane cursor

A visual solid modeling system for a polyhedral shape has been developed. The system is designed to be used as a styling design tool in the early stage of industrial design. A new shape modeling technique, involving the plane cursor and the cut operation, was developed for this purpose. The plane cursor, a 3-D graphical input tool, allows the user to locate a plane in 3-D space by mouse manipulation. The cut operation uses this plane as a cutting blade to cut off or divide a solid. These operations enable the user to generate an arbitrary polyhedron in a visual environment, which is similar to the work of making a mock-up model. The software organization and the shape data structure were also designed for this purpose.<>