Evolutionary Design by Computers [Hardcover]

Peter J. Bentley (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 11, 1999

Some of the most startling achievements in the use of computers to automate design are being accomplished by the use of evolutionary search algorithms to evolve designs.

Evolutionary Design By Computers provides a showcase of the best and most original work of the leading international experts in Evolutionary Computation, Engineering Design, Computer Art, and Artificial Life. By bringing together the highest achievers in these fields for the first time, including a foreword by Richard Dawkins, this book provides the definitive coverage of significant developments in Evolutionary Design.

This book explores related sub-areas of Evolutionary Design, including:

* design optimization
* creative design
* the creation of art
* artificial life.

It shows for the first time how techniques in each area overlap, and promotes the cross-fertilization of ideas and methods. A CD-ROM is included with the book, providing the reader with hands-on activities, evolved images, animations, and source-code related to the text. Evolutionary Design By Computers will be an essential resource for researchers in academia and industry.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Evolutionary Design by Computers is a collection of essays that describe recent research into "evolutionary" computing, where computers mimic the strategies of biological evolution to solve problems in architecture, engineering, art, and artificial life. Peter Bentley's excellent introduction to the current state of evolutionary design quickly orients readers to the field. Bentley shows that no matter how various practitioners identify themselves, they are united in applying the principals of Darwinism to computer algorithms.

The collection includes several theoretical essays that discuss the relationship of computer-driven design to human innovation. A section on evolutionary designs furnishes several case studies on real applications of these techniques--specifically, engineering problems for designing satellite booms, flywheels, and a reliability measurement for networks.

Among the contributions are essays on computer-art packages that make use of evolutionary algorithms. Programs such as Mutator and Forms show how anyone can use these evolutionary techniques. This discussion includes a survey of today's evolutionary art (evoart) packages, including several that are available on the Web.

The last part of the book covers artificial life, showcasing a program that evolves simple blocklike creatures that walk, swim, jump, and even compete with each another--a program that has obvious applications for robotics. The final sections examine additional real-world applications of evolutionary design techniques for architecture (for designing tables and hospital floor plans) and electrical engineering (specifically, analog circuits).

In all, Evolutionary Design by Computers provides an excellent introduction to one of today's most promising areas of computer science research for both specialists and general readers alike. --Richard Dragan

Review

"Evolutionary Design By Computers offers an enticing preview of the future of computer-aided design: Design by Darwin."
—Lawrence J. Fogel, President, Natural Selection, Inc.

"Evolutionary design by computers is the major revolution in design thinking of the 20th century and this book is the best introduction available."
—Professor John Frazer, Swire Chair and Head of School of Design, the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Author of "An Evolutionary Architecture"

"Peter Bentley has assembled and edited an important collection of papers that demonstrate, convincingly, the utility of evolutionary computation for engineering solutions to complex problems in design."
—David B. Fogel, Editor-in-Chief, IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 446 pages
• Publisher: Morgan Kaufmann; 1 edition (June 11, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 155860605X
• ISBN-13: 978-1558606050
• Product Dimensions: 10.1 x 7.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,050,779 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Book on Genetic Programming and Design, January 19, 2000

By 

Larry M. Deschaine, PE - See all my reviews

This review is from: Evolutionary Design by Computers (Hardcover)

Genetic Design / Optimization is an exciting field. The increasing power of desktop computers are opening up applications in design optimization that heretofore were difficult to solve or optimize.

As a registered professional engineer, I feel comfortable stamping designs derived via evolutionary computation since they must satisfy the physics of the problem in order to be feasible.

I found this book prepares both the practitioner and researcher for this field. The book comes with a CD that contains many web addresses and source code to various application programs which is very valuable resource and time saver.

This is an excellent resource in Genetic Algorithms and Design. I recommend this book highly.