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StackMold: Rapid Prototyping of Functional Multi-Material Objects with Selective Levels of Surface Details

Published: 17 October 2019 Publication History

Abstract

We present StackMold, a DIY molding technique to prototype multi-material and multi-colored objects with embedded electronics. The key concept of our approach is a novel multi-stage mold buildup in which casting operations are interleaved with the assembly of the mold to form independent compartments for casting different materials. To build multi-stage molds, we contribute novel algorithms that computationally design and optimize the mold and casting procedure. By default, the multi-stage mold is fabricated in slices using a laser cutter. For regions that require more surface detail, a high-fidelity 3D-printed mold subsection can be incorporated. StackMold is an integrated end-to-end system, supporting all stages of the process: it provides a UI to specify material and detail regions of a 3D~object; it generates fabrication files for the molds; and it produces a step-by-step casting instruction manual.

Supplementary Material

ZIP File (ufp6184aux.zip)
Output from StackMold: A computer generated instruction manual for casting a multi-material turtle object
MP4 File (ufp6184pv.mp4)
Preview video
MP4 File (ufp6184vf.mp4)
Supplemental video
MP4 File (p687-valkeneers.mp4)

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    cover image ACM Conferences
    UIST '19: Proceedings of the 32nd Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology
    October 2019
    1229 pages
    ISBN:9781450368162
    DOI:10.1145/3332165
    Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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    Published: 17 October 2019

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    Author Tags

    1. computational design
    2. molding
    3. multi-material fabrication

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    • (2023)WorldPoint: Finger Pointing as a Rapid and Natural Trigger for In-the-Wild Mobile InteractionsProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36264787:ISS(357-375)Online publication date: 1-Nov-2023
    • (2023)SurfaceCast: Ubiquitous, Cross-Device Surface SharingProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36264757:ISS(286-308)Online publication date: 1-Nov-2023
    • (2023)3D Finger Rotation Estimation from Fingerprint ImagesProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36264677:ISS(114-134)Online publication date: 1-Nov-2023
    • (2023)BrickStARt: Enabling In-situ Design and Tangible Exploration for Personal Fabrication using Mixed RealityProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36264657:ISS(64-92)Online publication date: 1-Nov-2023
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