Communications of the ACM
Carnegie Mellon-Disney Researcher Invents 3D Printing Technique For Making Cuddly Stuff
A new type of 3D printer can produce three-dimensional objects made of a form of loose felt.
Credit: Carnegie Mellon University/Disney Research Pittsburgh
Researchers at Disney Research Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) have developed a type of three-dimensional (3D) printer that produces 3D objects made of a form of loose felt.
We're really extending the set of materials available for 3D printing and opening up new possibilities for what can be manufactured," says CMU professor Scott Hudson.
Similar to other 3D printers, the new system can make objects by working directly from computerized designs. However, CMU's printer feeds out yarn instead of lines of melted plastic. A barbed felting needle attached to the printer head repeatedly then pierces the yarn, dragging down individual fibers into the yarn in the layers below, entangling the fibers and bonding the layers together.
Hudson notes the printer does not achieve the same dimensional accuracy as conventional 3D printers because the yarn is much thicker than the layers of plastic deposited in fused deposition modeling printing. He also notes the felt is weaker than typical fabric, so if the soft objects are to be attached to a hard object, a layer of nylon mesh fabric must be incorporated during the printing process to provide reinforcement to prevent the material from tearing off at the attachment point.
Hudson says possible applications for the printer include making parts for soft robots designed to touch or be near people.
Hudson discussed the printer at the recent ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems in Toronto.
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