An Engineering Design Named Visual Functional Mapping Which Based on Functional basis Applied on Biomimicry Field

Abstract

As the development of the engineering field, the characteristic of the modern engineering is accepted by engineering designers. There are Globalization, efficiency and standardization. The translation problem as such as language, culture and expression has been found by engineering designers. This paper introduced a new engineering design tool named visual functional mapping to solve this problem. Based on the functional basis, the paper used symbols to create eight icon, which is branch, channel, connect, control magnitude, convert, provision, signal and support, to represent all kinds of function in engineering design field. According to the research of the icons, the paper expanded the icon to make them more understanding. The biomimicry is becoming a new engineering tendency. This new engineering tools will widely use in the biomimicry and the paper also give some examples to represent how to use visual functional mapping apply in biomimicry field.