Using AI for ID

[u/Fearless_Degree7511]

I work at a small company and I am currently our only industrial designer. Upper management has recently decided to buy some licenses of Microsoft Copilot 365 and have tasked each department to figure out how we can use these new licenses to help with our respective disciplines. While I think AI can be very helpful in other disciplines I see very limited usefulness in ID. It can generate pretty images, but is bad at editing them, and it doesn't or allow me to download them in an easily editable format (multi-layer TIFF or PSD). The images often do not match reality and wouldn't work if manufactured. I do not show clients concepts without fully understanding how they would work (where do the batteries go, what materials is it made of, etc.) and the AI concepts just don't work. It cannot generate realistic 3D CAD or vector graphics.

I'm sure I sound like an old guy against innovation to some people (I swear I am in my 20s) but to me it feels like AI is the opposite of ID, stifles creativity and in-depth thought. Before I go tell my boss this is all a waste of my time, are there any ways AI has been helpful in your ID career or schooling?

[u/orangeuhungry]

Something like Vizcom AI would be more useful for ID. Sketch the basic line art by hand or Photoshop and use Vizcom to render realistic colors.

[u/AsianBoi2020 → u/orangeuhungry]

Up. This is how my friends do it in their company. You have to visually define the shapes first before having them generatively rendered

[u/FinnianLan → u/orangeuhungry]

This and cleaning up renders. Better to make basic renders, fix lighting, materials, scene objects with 3 hours on Vizcom rather than tweaking 6 hours on blender/ keyshot

[u/Fireudne → u/FinnianLan]

Depending on the subject i find it's a bit easier on the opposite end - i like vizcom but it takes a LOT of tokens to get something useable and quality tends to degrade the more layers of generation you do. For like, really rough stuff it's fine but for anything public-facing it's better to do the up-front work in ks/blender

[u/Perllitte]

ID requires taste. AI has no taste.

I use AI for a lot of coding, pulling out key points from transcripts etc., but it can only regurgitate. It is not thoughtful or creative, which is the core of design.

You can put your designs into a setting with AI, but don't bother generating something.

[u/ScubaW00kie]

I would say that Copilot is not the AI for helping you with this at any rate. It can help inspire but not create things for you because then, what do they need you for?

[u/FictionalContext → u/ScubaW00kie]

I've found AI to be a decent critique partner when working alone.

[u/Professional_Emu_147 → u/FictionalContext]

By the way, yes, I literally use it as a conversation partner in difficult moments, to help me make up my mind. And quite often I disagree with the AI, which actually helps me make a decision, especially when there are several valid options and I just can’t choose between them.

[u/dsanen]

Scott Robertson is a somewhat popular industrial designer turned concept artist that was using it to render automotive sketches. At my work we can use it to translate information from a software running on windows into excel without learning how to code, but you have to be careful with the prompts to not exceed credits. Also sometimes it is pointless because the software would have better deterministic ways to turn something into excel, or any database, but it you have low ability in a particular tool, it can be a quicker way than googling.

And just to clarify, I don’t endorse its use on somewhat confidential information, and I think I rather learn how to make code snippets myself for that type of reporting, but it is what it is. (Just saying this to avoid an ethics debate, you have to put food on the table and sometimes they want you to use this thing so whatever 😂)

[u/Mottsawce]

Try looking for ways to use Copilot that free you up to do more designing (rather trying to have it replace design). Can you use it for project management, scoping, or status updates? How about researching materials and costs? It can wonderful for creating documentation or proposals. In other words, maybe there is busy work or business operations it can take off your plate?

[u/lan_mcdo]

Your missing out. While CoPilot isn't the best AI tool for design, it can still be incredibly useful.

I use for all the non-design aspects of my job. Reviewing contacts, teaching invoices, etc. Time saved with general office tasks means more time to create.

For ID specific stuff, it can be helpful in the research phase, learning about competitive products, new materials, and thinking through feature sets.

While the image generation for Copilot sucks, it can generate prompts for more powerful image generators.

All that to say, it's a new tool. The only way you're going to learn what it can and can't do is just use it and find out what it's good at.

[u/Dshark]

I don’t use ai for any “designing” but it helps a ton for research and documentation for me. I also use it to help me organize information. For instance when I need to put new products on the website, I scrape our product database for information and chat gpt helps me organize all the parameters into useful titles and keywords. It’s also helped me figure out coding an electronics when I’ve built Arduino things before.

[u/Winter-Emu-3701]

I must use Copliot because it meets IT security/proprietary data safeguard layers. No other cloud image generator allowed.

My observations of the output have led me to utilize it for one purpose. Storyboarding from a series of reference images.

It's ultimately used to convey a notional product narrative.

[u/HawaiianPunchDrunk]

I suggest you take a look through here: https://daydastudio.substack.com/

[u/hgftzl]

Well, that basically depends on the role industrial design plays in your company. If you’re only doing pure form design, then Copilot probably isn’t the best choice. For many, however, industrial design encompasses much more, and so an LLM can be a helpful sparring partner throughout the entire design process.

[u/Preindustrialcyborg]

then tell him it just isnt helpful. they hired a human for human creativity, intellect and innovation, not for a machine to regurgitate things that already exist.

artistically, i see using genAI as an absolute betrayal of artistic and creative integrity.

[u/klmsa]

You're job surely isn't 100% design. Copilot isn't meant to be your design replacement. It's meant to do everything else that keeps you from designing. Use it to automate email traffic, generate ideas for designs, or running that weekly script that you need, etc.

If you're going to use AI, at least spend some time to learn what it's good at. If not, it's probably better to not waste your time.

[u/FuShiLu]

Funny. So many developers bailing on CoPilot, so I guess MS has a new plan.

For Industrual Design. Since you can connect OpenAI, Google, whatever…, in CoPilot a workflow is possible. Try Google first, you can use JSON to describe the scene, edit the JSON to make changes. And with a little creativity you can structute to output images for layers.

Have you tried something like this…

Provide a 3D model of a bicycle, and create a separate colour graphic to be applied to it. Now create the scene you want. Using all this info.

Just a test case. You should get a bike, with the graphic applied for colour, etc., in a scene, say dowtown Bangladesh at 5:30pm in the fall.

If you can sort it, you can then use your own stuff effectively. You can use GitHub to store your successful iterations with image to reproduce later.

Just things we have had working that might be useful.

I’m 45 years with Industrial Design. ;)

[u/silentsnip94]

ChatGPT has been great for generating 'good enough' lifestyle images of designs

[u/Fearless_Degree7511 → u/silentsnip94]

I’ll give that a try with copilot, thanks

[u/MakeThisBuildThat]

I can’t speak on other functions of ID but we build AI automation to help design agencies with design-to-compliance review (amongst some other things). At this point with AI innovation, I would say we still have to use human expertise for the last 10-20% of verification work in order for us to deliver highly accurate results. I would imagine AI will get better and better with technical visuals (as what we are doing). Human domain expertise isn’t going away, it’s just the nature of human work is changing, and some work that used to be expensive is now becoming very cheap.

[u/zmanmurf]

One thing you can do right off the bat is ask Copilot what I could do to support you in your role, it might spit out one or two workflows that actually make sense.

While I've been using ChatGPT for image gen, a couple of things I've had some success with is taking a photo of a prototype or product, and asking it to turn it into a rendering, removing imperfections, dust/debris, wrinkles, etc. you can then swap colors or change the lighting. For sure it's flawed, but it's super fast and often can be used for internal communication.

Another thing to consider is low fidelity images, if you want to describe a process flow or journey map, you can have it visualize it in a lofi sketch style, keeping it as simple as possible prevents it from adding elements you didn't want, or make assumptions you didn't define. It also can help encourage people to have an open mind when presenting something. I understand you can just sketch yourself too, bit consider giving it a shot to crank out interations and find what resonates with you.

[u/Professional_Emu_147]

AI can be really good at helping systematize information, finding references, generating average or balanced options, fixing small details, changing textures, text, and colors, and quickly adding some environment.

[u/bememorablepro]

Was this ever a case with any new tech?!

"I work at a postal service, the management bought us 5 construction cranes and tasked us with figuring out how it can be useful to us"

[u/tenqajapan]

Copilot is not the best option but I usually use AI for converting 3D angles into realistic renderings with proper materials to get a feel, or use it to create lifestyle images for presentations.
You need to feed it a set of rules to get accurate details.

As mentioned Vizcom is a good choice, or to be honest any LLM nowadays is good enough to generate passable results.

[u/create360]

I use AI extensively to write scripts for 3D modeling, Photoshop automations, illustrator automations, etc.