Interactive 3D Modeling and Digital Fabrication

Digital 3D shapes are ubiquitously used in product design and engineering, architecture, simulator training, medicine and prosthetics, virtual and augmented reality, entertainment and art. With the advancement and democratization of modern fabrication technologies such as 3D printing and robotic fabrication, interactive and intuitive tools for geometric modeling and processing gain importance and wide spread.  In this talk, I will discuss the research efforts of my lab in this domain, in particular in light of the growing resolution and proliferation of available geometric and visual data. I will survey a series of research results on surface modeling via mesh deformation and show how high-resolution meshes can be interactively manipulated and animated in a real-time and intuitive manner. I will also discuss how the incorporation of some simple physics laws directly into the interactive modeling framework can be done inexpensively and beneficially for geometric modeling: while not being as restrictive and parameter-heavy as a full-blown physical simulation, this allows users to creatively model shapes with improved realism and directly use them in fabrication.