Text-to-image generative models have recently exploded in popularity and
accessibility. Yet so far, use of these models in creative tasks that bridge
the 2D digital world and the creation of physical artefacts has been
understudied. We conduct a pilot study to investigate if and how text-to-image
models can be used to assist in upstream tasks within the creative process,
such as ideation and visualization, prior to a sculpture-making activity.
Thirty participants selected sculpture-making materials and generated three
images using the Stable Diffusion text-to-image generator, each with text
prompts of their choice, with the aim of informing and then creating a physical
sculpture. The majority of participants (23/30) reported that the generated
images informed their sculptures, and 28/30 reported interest in using
text-to-image models to help them in a creative task in the future. We identify
several prompt engineering strategies and find that a participant's prompting
strategy relates to their stage in the creative process. We discuss how our
findings can inform support for users at different stages of the design process
and for using text-to-image models for physical artefact design.

我们进行了一项试验，调查文字到图像生成模型是否可以用于创作过程中创作物品的出现前的任务，参与者大多数反馈生成的图像对他们的雕塑制作起到了启发作用，研究还发现生成图像的策略与创作过程的阶段有关。