The Geometric Fundamentals of Design

by Riccardo Migliari1
1 Sapienza Universit di Roma

From XXI SECOLO, Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana fondato da Giovanni Treccani - 2010

Geometry and the Project The architect, who designs a building, or an industrial product, uses geometry as the primary tool for the control of the designed shape. The geometric sciences, in fact, identify the shapes of three dimensions, the so-called geometric figures, they study and classify the properties of these, enabling the measurement and the exact reproduction of them by means of algorithms or construction procedures. These figures, arranged together, form the envelope of the bodies that are the subject of the planning. The designer, nevertheless, does also have another important demand: he has to see the object that he studies, before it is carried out, and he should be able to work on the virtual object as if he was working on a physical model. From this point of view, purely geometrical and therefore specialized and reductive, the project appears like a cyclical process in which the very first idea is followed by a construction that is simulated through the drawing, which permits the visualization and the measurement of the work. The process is cyclical because after the first examination, metric and visual, of the project idea, there follow modifications and further verifications that converge towards a definitive formulation. The performances of geometry applied to the project can therefore be summarized in the visualization of the shape, in the measurement and the construction, without giving to this order a hierarchical value, since the three phases succeed each other following the architects modus operandi. Geometry, thus directed towards the needs of the project, is the geometry that, bringing together millennia of experience, has been systematised by Gaspard Monge and that received from him the name of Descriptive Geometry (1794), and as such it is still known. This science gathers the methods necessary to the visualization and to the measurement, as well as the theories and the procedures necessary to the construction of the conceived shape. Descriptive geometry also has another function, which is not as conspicuous as the ones already enunciated, but which is no less important for that: it, in fact, stimulates the invention. Monge himself admits that this science is a means to search for truth and he offers endless examples of the passage from the well-known to the unknown. It is interesting to note that the flow Monge is talking about is opposite with respect to the flow in a geometrical construction. When constructing, we move the idea from the subtle world of intuition in which it is set, unknown at
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least in the details, into the solid and rational world of the representation; we are therefore making a passage from the unknown to the known. But exactly because this passage is revealing aspects that the intuition cannot explain, inevitably it stimulates further ideas, it discloses hidden properties, and it therefore traces a path that leads to new questions and new discoveries: from the known to the unknown, precisely. History of science has registered several moments in which these potentialities of descriptive geometry found complete expression, as for instance the discovery of the circular sections, which are obtained by cutting a torus with bi-tangent planes: Yvon Villarceau (1848) saw this result when making a drawing. The most convincing and topical example is precisely the project activity, during which the search for a solution, not only formal, happens through the evocative and seductive power of the drawing. This also explains the strongly formal character and, at times, exquisitely artistic that many contemporary architects and designers project drawings assume. We have to keep in mind that descriptive geometry, while on the one hand it is the architects primary tool, because it allows him to construct, visualize, measure and create three-dimensional shapes, on the other it has the dignity of an autonomous science, having its own methods, which are able to emphasize the properties of the shapes, not least those purely aesthetic, that otherwise would remain in a larval stage. These methods can be divided into two classes: the class of the representation methods and the class of the construction procedures of the geometric shapes. The first class gathers the theories that help to construct the images of the shapes and to use these images to perform measuring operations; the second class gathers the theories that allow us to create the studied shapes, in the imaginary world of the representation, as well as in the real world of the architectural and industrial production.

The Computer Revolution and its Impact on Descriptive Geometry The considerations described above are essential to understand the change that has happened, during these last twenty years, in the science of representation and, as a consequence, in the processing techniques of the project. As is common knowledge, at the end of the last century, there have been developed information technologies able to automate some of the tasks that until then were relying on descriptive geometry and, in particular: the visualization and the measurement. With the 1980s, in fact, the systems that were already being used in the two-dimensional drawing, replacing the technical aids of mechanical type, were endowed with the ability to work in a three-dimensional space and, with the passing of time, enriched with features more and more powerful. We thus passed from the management of simple linear structures (wire frame), to the representation by means of surfaces that have chiaroscuro effects and finally to the solids, of which not only the enveloping structure is described, but also the distinction between the inside and the outside, the physical characteristics of the specific weight and mass, and many other information.
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So, two of the project activity tasks that were exclusively entrusted to descriptive geometry, namely the visualization and the measurement, are nowadays excellently accomplished by the information systems. We can therefore understand how this technological progress has led to a profound change in the planning techniques and in the science that gives these techniques the necessary theoretical support. In the case of the project, the change concerns, above all, the production of the technical drawings, like those intended for the first communication. These drawings can nowadays be made by the machines in a semi-automatic way and namely with an intervention of the architect that does not concern the geometric construction of the drawing, but only the definition of the view. This is possible, obviously, only on condition that a three-dimensional model of the planned shape has been created within in the virtual space of the digital representation. But this ability of the machines is already enough, at least in part, to throw into crisis the ancient science we are dealing with, which sees reduced the importance of the wide range of disciplinary corpus that is devoted to the pure construction of the image of the planned object. It is also important to note how the semi-automatic creation of the projections, and therefore of the project drawings, starting with the three-dimensional virtual models, leads to a reversal of the flow of work with respect to the past: where the physical model in three dimensions, made of wood, plaster or using other techniques, were once deduced from the project drawing, now these drawings are derived from the model. Even if this way of proceeding is still at an experimental stage, there is no doubt about its consolidation in the usual planning procedure, because not only it is faster, it is also free from the inconsistencies that easily occur in a traditional project, where many drawings can represent, in various contexts, the same detail. In the pragmatic American professional environment it has also been seen how this technological evolution can remove the legal disputes that often arise against some of the key points of the processing chain of the civil construction. We can rather say that the project of an industrial product is already very close to this result, being numerous the examples of objects, even complex, like the cars, which have been built and tested resorting exclusively to digital representations, completely eliminating the two-dimensional drawings. The designers and the skilled workmen who carry out architectural or civil engineering works, instead, still use the printed form, but more and more often they get the project drawings from the threedimensional model, and, in any case, they generate them in a digital environment. Finally, among the technological innovations that concern both the geometry and the project we should not forget the possibility to obtain the three-dimensional physical models directly from the virtual model by means of special three-dimensional printing devices (rapid prototyping). Such devices are able to generate models but also, real dimensions permitting, working prototypes. At the same time, the profound changes that we have mentioned before, concern the tools that guarantee the metric control of the shape and that therefore are needed for its construction. These tools are much more efficient and accurate today than they were in the past and,
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consequently, the invention expresses itself more freely, as we can see every day, not only in the most recent buildings, but also in design objects. For centuries, the architects used shapes that could easily be described in the space imposing binding constraints on the movement of a point, or of a line: the so-called geometric loci. These loci lend themselves to create very simple figures like the sphere, the cylinder and the ruled surfaces, shapes that arise from the evolution of the circle or the line. Today, instead, thanks to the new digital geometry, the designers can control various and complex interpolation surfaces like, for instance, the fuselage and the wings of the aircrafts; or also sculptural shapes, which move and articulate in the space without any apparent law, like in some renowned works of contemporary architecture. In particular, in the traditional descriptive geometry, the surfaces are described by the rigid movement of a generatrix-line on another line that directs its motion. In the present-day descriptive geometry, instead, the shape of the generatrix may vary during the motion of this last along the directrix and the variation results from the interpolation of intermediate shapes. The hull of a boat is one example of this genesis: the planking is leaning on a series of ribs, covering and connecting them, creating the form of the boat. While once these lines, known as graphic lines in order to distinguish them from the geometric loci, could not be reproduced nor measured with precision, today they can be represented by means of parametric equations that are controlled, in the information system, in interactive graphic mode. We therefore also give a character of reproducibility and mathematical rationality to the most free and immediate gesture of the architect-artist.

The renewal process of the descriptive geometry After all, descriptive geometry has a historically consolidated relationship with the art and the construction in general, and it could therefore not fail to be affected by the technological evolution we mentioned earlier. The classical corpus of texts on the discipline, based first of all on the representation methods, understood as the theories of the construction of the encoded image, appeared to be completely inadequate compared with the contemporary project procedure and, what is worse, it seemed unrelated to the new representation techniques of the space, while these last, at the same time, did not seem to have a basis theory of general character, but only the algorithms that permit to solve this or that particular problem. In the academic circles, the architects who, due to changing historical events, today are the repository of the discipline of descriptive geometry, have finally seized the wish for renewal that came above all from the youth, faced, on the one hand, with a theory that does not seem to have any more applications and, on the other, with a technique that is incomprehensible, precisely because it is lacking the general concepts of a theory; now, finally, is ongoing a process of revision and renewal of the classic descriptive geometry, which is based on new definitions of the fundamentals and fulfilled through integrations and transformations of the corpus of texts on the discipline.
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As we will see in a while, the integrations concern, essentially, the representation methods, while the transformations involve above all the construction procedures of the geometric shapes. The representation methods, in general, are distinguishable for two essential reasons: the first, and the most important, is that each of the methods is able to record the characteristics of the shape and the dimension of an object in the space and, at the same time, it is able to transfer the object back into the space once it has been represented. A method, to be considered as such, must be able to perform this path, in both directions, autonomously, that is, without turning to other methods. The second reason that permits to distinguish the methods, the one from the other, concerns the use of each of them within the planning activity: the metric control, as in the case of the representation in plan and elevation, or the formal and perceptual control, as in the case of the perspective. The information systems make use, basically, of two digital representation methods that have been called: mathematical representation and numerical or polygonal representation. The mathematical representation can use both the classic equations of the analytic geometry, when it describes the geometric locus, and the parametric equations called NURBS (Non Uniform Rational B-Splines), when it describes graphic lines and free-form surfaces. These last equations generate the shape at the varying of two parameters u and v, and they can represent graphic lines and free-form surfaces as well as geometric loci. The mathematical representation, thus, is continuous and able, therefore, to precisely define the geometric shapes in every point of the space. The simplest and most common of the operations that are typical of a designers work, namely the drawing of sections of the represented object, highlights the most important characteristic of this description: the result of the cutting a surface is, as a matter of fact, a throughout defined line, which inherit the continuity from the surface to which it belongs. The measure of the length of this line is, in turn, precise to the extent that the accuracy of the system allows. The numerical or polygonal representation, instead, describes the bodies and the surfaces that define them by means of plane triangular or polygonal faces that form, in fact, an irregular polyhedron. The description consists of some lists that gather: the coordinates of the points that constitute the vertices of the polyhedron; the vertices that determine the sides of the triangles; the vertices that determine the sides of the polygon. The list of the coordinates identifies the vertices with an index and shows the Cartesian coordinates of these with respect to the local reference system, namely relative to the considered polyhedron. The lists of the polygons and the n-angles assign an index to each polygon and name the points that are part of these, using the index that distinguishes each of them. It is clear that, the higher is the number of the sides (also called, improperly, polygons), the more the represented shape will be able to approximate the reality. Nevertheless, this same operation of creating sections, that we mentioned above, produces, in this case, a broken line, which is defined precisely only in the vertices, and a measure of the length which accuracy is proportional to the number of the sides of the broken line. In
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short: the numerical representation is discrete and not continuous, approximate and not precise, as instead is the mathematical representation. It is interesting now to note that the above said representation methods are able to record the shape of an object and to render it to the space, even if using different procedures and different application potentialities. It should also be noted that the digital drawing applications, or better the modelling applications, since we are dealing with three-dimensional shapes, always use both of these two representation methods, even if in different measure and with different aims. In particular, the mathematical representation is used when a correct metric control is essential, whereas the numerical or polygonal representation is used when a perceptive control is useful. To the four traditional representation methods, which are the perspective, the representation in plan and elevation, the axonometric projection, the topographic projection, are therefore added the mathematical representation and the numerical or polygonal representation. In this first theoretical distinction, the two digital methods do no differ from the already wellknown graphical techniques: the continuous tracing of a curve, with a pair of compasses for example, and the construction by points, obtained through the intersection of projective fasciae. For that reason, one part of the scientific world thinks that the digital representation methods are techniques and not methods in the true sense of the word. But, since the two systems are based each on its own apparatus of theoretical principles, and not of empirical rules, it seems right to consider them, in all respects, new methods of descriptive geometry. Another objection concerns the fact that, while the classic methods are easily distinguishable by the kind of images that they produce (plan, elevation, perspective), the new methods are both able to generate, real-time, whatever kind of image the designer asks for. Nevertheless, as we already said, the distinguishing character of the representation method, is the use that the designer makes of it and from this point of view there is no doubt that the above said methods have different application fields, which do not depend on the image that they are generating, but on the functional characteristics of the method. Finally, one last doubt concerns the genesis of the images employed by each method; in the classic methods, the image is generated by means of a projection and section process, which is nothing but the intersection of the visual pyramid already theorized by Leon Battista Alberti (1435). In an apparently very different way, the applications that allow to draw in the space, generate the twodimensional image that appears on the screen, simply eliminating the depth of the threedimensional object, or better, setting the coordinate z of its vertices equal to zero, with respect to a reference system that have the axes x and y parallel to the screen. As a matter of fact, the plane section of the sheaf of lines and planes that project the geometric shapes onto a plane surface, creating the image used in the method, is nothing but a particular case of the process employed in the digital representation. It is easy to understand this if we generalize the concept of projection, using the space as a support, instead of the plane. And this widened concept is not new at all, it was already recognized as general view of the representation methods by Wilhelm Fiedler (1871)
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who thinks that every graph is a specialization of the solid perspective. A theory of the genesis of the image that is common to all the methods of descriptive geometry is therefore identified, both when they are graphical as well as when they are digital.

Hybridization and ambiguity of the new methods of descriptive geometry As we already said, what distinguishes the mathematical and numerical representation methods is the continuous or discrete character of the representation. This distinction is as much more fundamental, the more the above said methods are subject to ambiguity and hybridization. One first ambiguity arises from the fact that the applications employed for the digital modelling of three-dimensional shapes do not solely make use of one or the other of the above mentioned methods, they use them both, even if to a different extent. In fact, the numerical representation is the only kind of representation that can be run by the hardware to produce the visualization of the object and, consequently, the applications that employ the mathematical representation must construct a discrete numerical model superposed on the continuous mathematical representation, just in order to generate the image. On the contrary, the applications that employ the numerical representation, make use of mathematical functions, and in particular of the NURBS, in order rapidly to generate continuous shapes, which will then be converted into polyhedrons that will be subject to further modelling processes. It is therefore clear that these representations frequently have to be converted one into the other. The process that converts a continuous shape into a discrete shape, and that covers the mathematical model with a polygonal model is known as tessellation and it is used not only in the digital technique, but also in the project, when a freely modelled surface have to be created by means of a reticular structure. The inverse process, which consists in converting the discrete polygonal model into a continuous mathematical model, is instead known as reverse engineering or, with a more appropriate expression, reverse modelling (Marco Gaiani, 2001); it is used both in the planning of industrial products, as well as in the architectural survey. It is important to observe that, while in the first passage, from continuous to discrete, there is a loss of information, in the second, from discrete to continuous, the information must necessarily be integrated and the passage requires therefore an interpretative act that may introduce arbitrary variables. If, for instance, we would like to replace the polygonal survey of the intrados of a dome with the mathematical surface that best approximates the experimental data, we will have to interpolate the numerical model with a geometric locus shape, for example a sphere, or a surface of revolution, introducing, thus, an interpretation of the project idea of the studied building whose reliability cannot be evaluated with the tools of the mathematics, but with those of the philology and the history. There is, instead, no point in interpolating the experimental data with surfaces of free shape, like those used in the industrial design, because this process would not add any improvements to the knowledge of the artefact.
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These hybridizations of the models, however, are nothing new: the history of project drawing recalls many illustrious examples of hybridizations among the graphical methods, for instance plans from which comes a perspective, axonometries associated with elevations, and so on. Thanks to the techniques of digital scanning of the two-dimensional drawings, it is also possible to make mathematical representations that derive from representations in plan and elevation and, more in general, models that combines the expressiveness of the traditional drawing with the accuracy of the digital representation. The hybrids, finally, are so common in the description of shapes precisely because they compound methods that have different vocations and they therefore describe, in one only model or with one single image, metric and perceptive characters, distributive and aesthetic qualities, achieving effects of great expressiveness. Finally, I think it is important to clarify one last ambiguity, even if banal: it can confuse a little the fact that a curve surface appears to be shaded and without solution of continuity both in the mathematical representation, as well as in the polygonal representation, where the sides of the polyhedron should be seen. This happens because an algorithm, which is due to Phong (1975), does interpolate the light intensity degree of the planes that form the sides of the polyhedron, so that these last, instead of showing a colourless colour, they have a fading colour, which hides the sight of the edges between them. The traditional representation methods have demonstrated, in the year-long process of their codification, a noteworthy stability, in the sense that, each attempt to add new methods has turned out to be unfruitful, because those currently known exhaust all the possibilities of a plane representation that is also of immediate reading. Will it be so for the digital representation methods, of recent introduction, too? Of course it is not possible to give a scientifically based answer to this question, but it is possible to see in the subdivision surfaces an evolution of the numerical representation towards the mathematical representation. These surfaces are obtained through the algorithms that divide the sides of the polygon into smaller parts, following different criteria. Repeating the subdivision process a finite number of times we obtain, clearly, a surface that is still described numerically, but that better approximates the continuous surface. In passing to the limit, the subdivision process repeats itself recursively an infinite number of times and a mathematically defined surface is then obtained. At the moment there are two applications of this subdivision technique that acts, respectively, on the numerical representation, that is on the polyhedron, which has as its vertices the points of known coordinates, and on the mathematical representation, therefore on the control points that control the NURBS surfaces. Consequently, the distinction between the digital representation methods is still, and in any case, well-defined.

Characters of the new descriptive geometry The digital representation methods have some other extremely innovative characteristics, which have remarkable impacts on the planning as well as on the theoretical evolution of descriptive geometry and these are: the accuracy and the spatiality. The accuracy is the capability of the method to describe the measure. As is well-known, each measure contains an error and the accuracy represents the maximum deviation that it is reasonable to expect between the measured size and the real size. A conventional technical drawing has an accuracy that is equal to the width of the stroke of a precision pen: about twotenths of a millimetre; a mathematical representation of good quality has an accuracy of some micron, namely of a few thousandths of a millimetre. The mathematical representation is, therefore, about one hundred times more accurate than a conventional technical drawing. This brings some remarkable consequences: first of all, in most of the cases of the project, it is no longer necessary to dimension the drawing, namely to write the measurements in numbers, if not for the immediacy of the reading, since the measure taken on the model, or on the drawing that derives from this, is exact. In fact, the error, however contained in the measure, is not taken into consideration, because it is negligible. In a building project, for instance, the measurements never exceed the precision of one millimetre, and this considering that the accuracy, as we already said, can reach a much smaller value. Secondly, the measures are not subject to variations, as it happens instead in drawings carried out on various supports, like paper, which may be subject to alterations due to environmental conditions. In fact, the metric data of the representation is stored in digital form, even if it is shown in graphic form. The spatiality is the capability of the representation to simulate the space and thus allow the designer to act on the three-dimensional forms, as he could do it on their physical model. The conventional representations achieve this result through a geometric code that always employs at least two projections, associated and overlapping; in this way the support of the drawing, which is two-dimensional, can show the three dimensions of the space. The digital representations, instead, describe the space recording directly its three dimensions in digital form and they automatically translate this immaterial model into a flow of images that can change in real-time. In this way the designer can see the space, in which he works, as if it were a world situated beyond the screen of the computer and subject to his actions. One may legitimately ask, then, how it is possible to draw in the space and namely to control with precision the evolution of the curves and the surfaces that inhabit a world in three dimensions. In the graphical descriptive geometry this problem is solved by drawing the lines, in true shape, on planes that are laid on one of the projection planes, being these last conventionally coincident with the sheet of drawing paper. The so-constructed shape is then placed in the space with a rotation operation of the plane that is hosting it. In descriptive geometry extended to the digital environment, on the contrary, the plane on which we are drawing does not necessarily coincide with the screen that displays the images and it is not, of necessity, parallel to this, but it
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can be oriented in any direction in the space. The skew curves, or bent curves, instead, are constructed, in both environments, graphic and digital, in the same way, namely as an intersection of two cylinders that project plane curves. The surfaces, finally, derive from the evolution of the curves we already briefly described. The extensive spatiality of the digital representations has another remarkable effect, too: it makes it possible to create geometric constructions that until only recently had a purely theoretical character. Such are, for instance, the genesis and the projective transformations of quadric surfaces, metamorphoses of the sphere into an ellipsoid, into a paraboloid or a hyperboloid of two sheets and similar mutations of the hyperboloid into a hyperbolic paraboloid and vice versa. The same transformations can be applied to an architectural model and they produce the solid scenography of the represented space. This scenography is able to create illusory spaces similar, in other words, to the ones that the union of art and science has produced in the Renaissance and the Baroque periods. In the sphere of the geometric studies, the accuracy and the spatiality of the mathematical representation give to the geometric construction the value of experimental verification. For example, Monges theorem, which affirms that there exists one and only one ruled surface that leans against three distinct curves however given in the space, finds an easy verification in the construction that allows to generate such a surface. It is important to bear in mind that this kind of approach is usual and legitimate in geometry and that it is explicitly enumerated among the research methods (Gino Loria, 1935). In that sense, the theoretical ambit is not different from that of the planning ambit, because even the project idea needs an existential demonstration, or better a verification of its geometric and formal coherence. So, the new descriptive geometry works in a very different way from the traditional one and it conveys its aptitudes to the planning. The construction of the analogical representation, a task that once was exclusively reserved to the rule and compasses, is nowadays performed by other curves, too, like the conics, and also by surfaces, being it able, as we already said, to draw not only on paper, but also in the space. In the past, in fact, the rule and compasses were considered the only tools that could be used to draw accurate lines and thus the straight line and the circle were the only lines that could be considered in a geometric demonstration. The information systems, though, carry out the drawing of any geometric locus with the same accuracy with which they draw a line or a circle; it therefore seems legitimate, today, to use these loci in the solution of the problems that are typical of the descriptive geometry. A good example of the synergy between accuracy and spatiality, in the new descriptive geometry, is given by the solution of the Apollonian problem in the space, which consists in constructing the sphere (or the spheres) that touches other four given spheres. If we respect the limits of the classic geometric orthodoxy and namely the exclusive use of rule and compasses, the solution of this problem requires a discussion of more than one hundred pages (Louis Gaultier, 1812). If, instead, we use other geometric loci, such as conics and quadrics of revolution, we obtain a
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solution that not only is simpler, but that has the merit of generality, adapting immediately itself to all the cases that may occur (Riccardo Migliari, 2008). Moving again from the theoretical sphere to the practical, this solution also shows how the new descriptive geometry can respond to the problems posed by a formal research, always more audacious, in architectural planning, as well as in design.

The geometry for the planning as a synthesis of qualitative science and quantitative science It is better now to examine some absolutely theoretical concepts, and therefore once confined to the academic discussions, that, again thanks to the accuracy of the information systems, have become tools of common use in the project: we will consider, in particular, the Gaussian curvature, the isophote lines, the new declensions of the perspective and the concept of barycentre of a solid. The Gaussian curvature, an abstract concept that defines the quality of a surface, from the point of view of the differential geometry, is used to ensure that distinct reflecting surfaces follow one another without apparent solution of continuity. If the coachworks of our cars have this aesthetical gift, it is not due to the skill of a panel beater, but to the patience of a designer who created the mathematical representation of the car-body in such a way that the above said surfaces would have a full curvature continuity at every point of their joints. After having imposed the above said continuity, the designer verifies the quality of his work by means of the lines of equal brightness (isophotes): in fact, if the surfaces have the required gift, then the isophote lines are continuous at their joints too, and we can be sure that no distorted reflections can reveal any imperfection of the surface. Also the isophote lines derive from the classic theory of the shades of the chiaroscuro and they move from the purely academic dissertation to the designers drawing table and his daily work. Analogous destiny, that of the perspective. The conveyance of this, which is the oldest of the encoded representation methods, into the digital environment, has enriched it with new potentialities. The perspective, today, is no longer only the static perspective of the graphic applications it once was, it is also dynamic and, when required, interactive. The dynamic perspective is generated by means of a flow of images that, following one another at the same speed of that of a motion-picture projection, allows to simulate the perception of an observer who moves about in the space. In this case the motion follows a trajectory determined in advance by the architect and procedures of exploration of the space that cannot be changed by the onlooker. The designer is therefore also the director of the animated film he created. The most common application of this technique in the project is the diffusion or presentation of the project itself. The action can be entirely simulated, or contextualized in a real environment. In the first case both the building or the designed object, and the context, are digital simulations. In the second case only the project is simulated, whereas the context into which the project will be
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inserted is taken, with a photo camera or with a cine-camera, from the real world. The coherence of the digital support, capable of describing with the use of this same technique, namely with numbers, sounds, images and geometries, enables to merge reality and illusion in such a way that the onlooker will not become aware of the artifice and it therefore furnishes a sophisticated system of verification of the visual perception of the space. Even if this method is not much employed in the planning of buildings yet, it is commonly used in the advertising of industrial products and in the film scenography (visual effects), where it has a growing success because of the quality of the results and the reduction of costs that it enables. The theory on which the dynamic perspective is based originates from the inverse problem of the perspective (Vaulezard, 1631), which solution allows to transform the perspective image into the three-dimensional shape that generated it. This theory has developed into the theoretical photogrammetry, then into the analogical and digital photogrammetry applications, to arrive, today, to the automatic renderings of the three-dimensional space drawn from a redundant number of perspectives (photographic or cinematographic), which enable the reconstruction of the motion of the camera and of the shapes of the motionless objects that were filmed live. These data, drawn from the flow of frames, are used in the creation of digital images that coincide perfectly with the real ones, arriving at results in which the reality and the digital simulation are indistinguishable. The interactive perspective, instead, is a dynamic representation where the user guides his own digital alter-ego (avatar) in the represented space. This kind of perspective is the only one in which the point of view is chosen by the user of the model and not by the designer, and this is the reason why it can easily be used in experiences of participatory design. As things stand, the geometries of the objects have to be simulated, but the materials that cover them can be generated making use of artifices, or be taken from the real world. This technique, constantly evolving, and commonly used in video games, has also been applied with success to the representation of the architectural project, and it is widely used in scientific and technical simulations, in the industry as well as in the professional training in various fields (we think, for instance, of the training of aircraft pilots). One last example of the new characteristics of the descriptive geometry extended to the digital tools is the use of the barycentre of a solid body. As is well known the barycentre of a plane shape is a purely geometric concept, whereas it is not possible to say this about the barycentre of a body of three dimensions, which is a concept that often can be found in the physical and the mechanical sciences. Nevertheless, the possibility to determine this point in a solid geometric shape finds important applications in the solution of geometrical problems, like the construction of the axes of a quadric cone and, more generally, of some of the shapes that admit a director-cone. We can see how these new performances of descriptive geometry in reality are the result of a computation, which is translated into a visible model, being it the map of the curvature of a
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surface in traditional colours or the pixel that shows the exact position of the barycentre of a solid. Well, this modality of the geometric expression, which uses the analogy to describe the result of a digital process, may appear to be hybrid, too, and not purely geometric. But, as a matter of fact, we are simply dealing with the fulfilment of one of Monges wishes, the synergies between analysis and synthesis, between symbolic languages and graphic languages, which the French mathematician already clearly expressed in the first edition of his most famous work (1798): the analytic geometry and descriptive geometry should be cultivated together, since in this way the descriptive geometry would bring its own evidence into the most complex analytical processes and, in turn, the analysis would bring the generality and accuracy of the results to the descriptive geometry. After all, Monges idea has not been abandoned: this way of making research, openminded, deliberately disrespectful of the fences that surround the disciplinary fields of mathematics, has illustrious supporters: from Guido Castelnuovo (1903) to Harold Scott Mc Donald Coxeter (1961). In former times, when electronic computers were still unknown or had far from reached their present-day world-wide distribution, the schools of mathematics have created a rich selection of three-dimensional models, maquettes in plaster, wood and other materials very similar to those which decorate the studio of an architect or a designer. Recently these collections have been subject to studies and additions carried out, precisely, with virtual models. Ren Thom (1977), while on the one hand he considers the descriptive geometry as an obsolete science, and affirms that he would like to free himself from the manipulation of the Euclidean threedimensional bodies of the space, on the other hand he recognizes to the qualitative sciences the capability to construct models that are the only ones able to explain our surrounding world, even if they cannot give quantitative results. So, it really looks like as if the synergy hoped for by Monge, and today fully expressed by the union between the concise reasoning of the geometry and the electronic calculation, is able to create a synthesis between quantity and quality, producing results that, while they describe with audacious analogies and with great immediacy the reality of a phenomenon, they also allow a quantitative analysis with controlled accuracy.

Bibliography
CASALE Andrea, Geometria creativa, Intuizione e ragione nel disegno delloggetto, Edizioni Kappa, Roma 2010 MIGLIARI Riccardo, Rappresentazione come sperimentazione, in Ikhnos. Analisi grafica e storia della rappresentazione, edited by G. PAGNANO, Siracusa 2008, p., 11-28 MIGLIARI Riccardo, Geometria Descrittiva, vol. I Metodi e Costruzioni, CittStudi, Novara 2009 MIGLIARI Riccardo, Geometria Descrittiva, vol. II Tecniche e Applicazioni, CittStudi, Novara 2009 VALENTI Graziano Mario, Hyspace: spazio virtuale parametrico per la fruizione interattiva di modelli digitali, in e-ArCom07 - Sistemi Informativi per larchitettura, Ancona 2007. 13

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