State of the Art in Methods and Representations for Fabrication-Aware Design

Abstract

Computational manufacturing technologies such as 3D printing hold the potential for creating objects with previously undreamed-of combinations of functionality and physical properties. Human designers, however, typically cannot exploit the full geometric (and often material) complexity of which these devices are capable. This STAR examines recent systems developed by the computer graphics community in which designers specify higher-level goals ranging from structural integrity and deformation to appearance and aesthetics, with the final detailed shape and manufacturing instructions emerging as the result of computation. It summarizes frameworks for interaction, simulation, and optimization, as well as documents the range of general objectives and domain-specific goals that have been considered. An important unifying thread in this analysis is that different underlying geometric and physical representations are necessary for different tasks: we document over a dozen classes of representations that have been used for fabrication-aware design in the literature. We analyze how these classes possess obvious advantages for some needs, but have also been used in creative manners to facilitate unexpected problem solutions.