Interactive evolutionary design method of product modeled based on interactive three-dimensional spherical interface

With the popularity of the Metaverse, the virtual industry economic model is gradually emerging, and the convenience of production of virtual products provides the possibility of non-homogeneous products, which greatly stimulates the personalized needs of customers. Interactive Evolutionary Design (IED) is an intelligent design method aligning human–computer collaboration to create products meeting personal preferences, effectively addressing customer needs. To enhance evolutionary performance and reduce user fatigue, we propose a 3D spherical space-based IED method, and the fitness is calculated through user interaction with a virtual spherical interface. The study initially develops a mode for presenting and interacting with design individuals, allowing users to freely rotate the designs for enhanced evaluation. Subsequently, a two-dimensional Kansei image coordinate system is constructed based on the cognitive patterns of product model images and mapped onto a three-dimensional spherical space using topological principles. Furthermore, we introduce an evaluation method for clusters of individuals and a corresponding fitness calculation for each individual. In a controlled experiment featuring a Chinese vase as the design subject and involving 20 participants, our method demonstrated significant improvements in total evolution time, average individual evaluation time, and the number of evolutionary generations. This study provides an efficient customer-participatory commodity design model, which reduces the production and operation costs of suppliers and improves the efficiency of organization and management in the design process, and is especially significant for improving the supply chain performance of virtual industries.