A function-based keyword search is a concept generation methodology studied in the bioinspired design area that conveys textual biological inspiration for engineering design. Current keyword search methods are inefficient primarily due to the knowledge gap between engineering and biology domains. To improve current keyword search methods, we propose an algorithm that extracts and organizes morphology-based solutions from biological text. WordNet is utilized to discover morphological solutions in biological text. The novel algorithm also adapts latent semantic analysis and the expectation–maximization algorithm to categorize morphological solutions and group biological text. We introduce a novel penalty function that reflects the distance between functions (problems) and morphologies (solutions). The penalty function allows the algorithm to extract morphological solutions directly related to a design problem. We compare the output of the algorithm to manually extracted solutions for validation. A case study is included to exemplify the utility of the developed algorithm. Upon implementation of the algorithm, engineering designers can discover innovative solutions in biological text in a straightforward, efficient manner.

Primary among all the activities involved in conceptual design is freehand sketching. There have been significant efforts in recent years to enable digital design methods that leverage humans’ sketching skills. Conventional sketch-based digital interfaces are built on two-dimensional touch-based devices like sketchers and drawing pads. The transition from two-dimensional to three-dimensional (3-D) digital sketch interfaces represents the latest trend in developing new interfaces that embody intuitiveness and human–human interaction characteristics. In this paper, we outline a novel screenless 3-D sketching system. The system uses a noncontact depth-sensing RGB-D camera for user input. Only depth information (no RGB information) is used in the framework. The system tracks the user's palm during the sketching process and converts the data into a 3-D sketch. As the generated data is noisy, making sense of what is sketched is facilitated through a beautification process that is suited to 3-D sketches. To evaluate the performance of the system and the beautification scheme, user studies were performed on multiple participants for both single-stroke and multistroke sketching scenarios.