Abstract:

To enhance designers’ control over the overall image conveyed by interior and exterior decoration in the early stage of intelligent vehicle modeling design, an evaluation method for assessing the coupling degree of interior and exterior decoration modeling was proposed, based on eye movement experiments and Kansei engineering theory. By employing a coupling theory approach, investigations were conducted to obtain perceptual image vocabularies and co-occurrence galleries for both interior and exterior decoration. Observation distance was introduced as an adjustment factor to standardize the image evaluation of interior and exterior decoration. The semantic differential method was employed to construct an overall image space for interior and exterior decoration, enabling us to derive an image transition line. Eye movement experiments were conducted to identify key design elements and their objective cognitive weights for both car interiors and exteriors. Following expert review and correction, comprehensive weights were calculated, which were then combined with image scores. This allowed us to explore an evaluation method based on cognitive coupling of smart car interiors and exteriors. The proposed model was applied to evaluate three smart cars, with results compared to scores obtained through semantic differential analysis. Numerical findings demonstrated that our proposed method could achieve high accuracy while effectively guiding subsequent coupling designs of smart car interiors and exteriors.

Key words: coupling, interior and exterior, smart vehicle, image transition line, Kansie image, observation distance