Responsive Motif Exploration Using Symmetry Dependency Syntax

Abstract

Motifs are widely used as textures on daily products for their regular and repetitive aesthetics. However, motif design is hard for novices. In this article, we introduce a design exploring system to enable novices to experience motif design easily by simple interactions. We propose the symmetry dependency syntax to encode motif elements and symmetric relations to diverse tree structures. Based on that, we provide motif variation mechanisms, including propagation, adjustment, and attachment, to generate new motifs while recovering motif symmetries broken by the user's manipulations on a motif. When the user deletes, inserts, transforms or replaces an element in a motif, the system automatically generates diverse new symmetric motifs by an encoding-variation flow. Experimental results show that our system can generate diverse motifs in regular visual effects with simple editing interactions, significantly reduce the barrier of motif design for novices.