Sit & Relax: Interactive Design of Body-Supporting Surfaces

Abstract

We propose a novel method for interactive design of well-fitting body-supporting surfaces that is driven by the pressure distribution on the body's surface. Our main contribution is an interactive modeling system that utilizes captured body poses and computes an importance field that is proportional to the pressure distribution on the body for a given pose. This distribution indicates where the body should be supported in order to easily hold a particular pose, which is one of the measures of comfortable sitting. Using our approximation, we propose the entire workflow for interactive design of C2 smooth surfaces which serve as seats, or generally, as body supporting furniture for comfortable sitting. Finally, we also provide a design tool for RHINOCEROS/GRASSHOPPER that allows for interactive creation of single designs or entire multi-person sitting scenarios. We also test the tool with design students and present several results. Our method aims at interactive design in order to help designers to create appropriate surfaces digitally without additional empirical design passes.