Issues in the design of tactile input devices for mechanical CAD systems

Although some current CAD systems have successfully integrated expert systems with solid modelers and analysis packages, most of these systems are conspicuously unequipped with the intuitive human-computer interfaces necessary to allow a designer truly to conceptualize a design. It is asserted that the primary reason why many of the current systems serve more as design verification tools than as true design synthesis tools is that the human interfaces used are too awkward to give the designer the flexibility to create and modify a design easily. To date there has been little deviation from the traditional keyboard and mouse or stylus input devices. A brief description is given of initial research efforts to develop an alternative computer input device for mechanical CAD