NURBSforms: A Modular Shape-Changing Interface for Prototyping Curved Surfaces
Name
2020-TEI-NURBSforms-paper.pdf
Description
Accepted version
Size
8.08 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
280e320d2c6f135f1df8eebb63c53e11
Author(s)
Tahouni, Yasaman
Qamar, Isabel P. S.
Mueller, Stefanie
Date Issued
February 2020
Journal
TEI 2020 - Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction
Publisher
ACM
Citation
Tahouni, Yasaman, Qamar, Isabel P. S. and Mueller, Stefanie. 2020. "NURBSforms: A Modular Shape-Changing Interface for Prototyping Curved Surfaces." TEI 2020 - Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction.
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
© 2020 Association for Computing Machinery. We present NURBSforms: A modular shape-changing interface for prototyping curved surfaces. Each NURBSform module represents an edge of variable curvature that, when joined together with other modules, enables designers to construct surfaces and adjust their curvature interactively. NURBSform modules vary their curvature using active and passive shape memory materials: An embedded shape memory alloy (SMA) wire increases the curvature when heated, while an elastic material recovers the flat shape when the SMA wire cools down. A hall effect sensor on each module allows users to vary the curvature by adjusting the distance of their hand. In addition, NURBSforms provides functions across multiple modules, such as ?save', ?reset', and ?load', to facilitate design exploration. Since each module is self-contained and individually controllable, NURBSform modules scale well and can be connected into large networks of curves representing various geometries. By giving examples of different NURBSforms assemblies, we demonstrate how the modularity of NURBSforms, together with its integrated computational support, enables designers to quickly explore different versions of a shape in a single integrated design process.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1145/3374920.3374927
