[TANGERINE]

January 31, 2023

Thinking Loop

TGN is a set of software features proposed for open source development and implementation in all modeling applications/platforms.

A large part of the future of software development is (will be) about the form of engagement with digital models. There is a long way to go before digital media adequately supports the generate>>engage>>interpret>>generate>>engage… thought loop.

TGN is a good step along the way.

Here’s where TGN fits, in the present and future landscape of digital media and software development. And it fits whether your business is using AI or getting steamrolled by AI.

(narrated video):

https://youtu.be/KY1SSvxjhqQ

The slide deck unrolled:

SERIOUS engagement with models. What’s that about?

Can you imagine a world without engagement? A waste of time.

For help imagining, look at video games and film.

Here’s the spaghetti western… definitely a world of engagement in high quality form. That’s an understatement. If you haven’t seen Once Upon a Time in the West, I can’t recommend it enough. Words fail at the final duel scene that starts near this frame. Awe inspiring. 11 out of 10… Charles Bronson near the camera. Henry Fonda the black hat. Directed by Sergio Leone. This is engagement as good as it gets. (Spoiler): You can find the duel on YouTube but, just watch the movie. All 2 hours and 45 minutes of it.

I know, I’m hyping this scene, though it really is exceptional. But that’s not the point. In film, there is an encapsulation of the way we look at, see, engage, interpret, understand, AND generate, the world.

You might notice something funny.

Or the combination, a car that’s acting like a gun. Interesting that all 3 of these movies, these 2, and Once Upon a Time in the West, came out in 1968. A good year for the movies I’d say.

I mean, this is completely obvious, right? just get in a car and drive around your AEC model and run over stuff?… Is that a useful form of engagement in technical models? Or, as some people advocate, how about no form of engagement at all? Well, if running around with a gun or a car in technical models is ineffective, I’ll just add that no engagement at all is even less useful. Something more is needed.

In digital visual space/time for technical modeling, AFR/TGN is adequate. It rises to meet the need, the occasion. AFR/TGN is a recognizable form of engagement of high quality for both interpretive and generative purposes (as in real life! – I’ll come back to that), and other purposes, like communication.

Here are the 8 proposed open source core features of TGN. I describe and demonstrate these at my website (this website https://tangerinefocus.com/)

Please go there, take a look:

Let’s compare AFR/TGN to other forms of engagement with models.

I’m scoring the final duel scene in Once Upon a Time in the West an 11 out of 10. Engagement can never be done better. Might as well not try. I mean, game over.

For those still recommending no engagement I’m scoring that a zero:

BCF is an improvement on saved views and gets a 5:

Automatic drawing-model fusion is 11 years old now, precedent tech from 9 software vendors that I know of. It gets a 6. I did it first. You can find info about that on here:

Earlier Innovations (2012)

The page is at the TGN drop down menu in the website header:

I’m scoring TGN a 7,,,,, and TGN is the minimum standardized core feature set under the broader unlimited attention focusing rigs AFR concept. I talk about AFR at my website. AFR can extend TGN as far as anyone can envision/imagine (it’s up to you), so the potential of AFR is 10. Not 11. 11 is reserved. That’s already done and won’t be done again.

But we can do this. We can upgrade the other engagements to TGN and increase the quality of engagement of all of them to 7. There are many possible paths for automating this upgrade by the way. And note the differentiation space between TGN and AFR, from 7 to 10.

One last thing, These are not the only forms of model engagement. There are other important forms of course. Here are a few.

Sure this is the big bang diagram of the expansion of the universe:

But let’s say it’s not the universe but it’s your project model.

Where does it come from? What generates it?

Your BRAIN. Or some brains. A team of people imagine it.

This is a generative engagement with modeling. Which of course reminds of generative/computational design apps…

Grasshopper, Generative Components, Dynamo, etc.

But of course now enters AI via Chat GPT etc.

The things is, we need to look at this as a whole:

And these things are both GENERATIVE and INTERPRETIVE:

You use these things (at the yellow arrows) both to generate, and to interpret what’s generated.

And so are these. Both generative and interpretive.

Engagement, with models mental or digital, has form. And the form is recognizable.

That is, recognizable in its traditional form. Its digital form remains underdeveloped. TGN is a specific proposal for engagement’s further development.

Engagement has purpose, both INTERPRETIVE (to help you understand models) and GENERATIVE:

Model engagements are GATEWAYS FOR INPUT BACK INTO GENERATIVE SYSTEMS (minds, computational algorithms, AI).

It is up to developers to recognize that, develop it. There are abundant ideas on engagement-mediated input back into generative systems. TGN establishes a generalizable, standardizable, recognizable form of interpretive engagement with digital models, and so is an important step toward wider use of such input gateways. And clearer, easier access to them: