Communications of the ACM
Disney Researchers Show Soft Sides With Layered Fabric 3D Printer
Researchers have developed a 3D printer that layers laser-cut sheets of fabric to form soft objects.
Credit: Disney Research
Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and Disney Research have developed a three-dimensional (3D) printer that layers laser-cut sheets of fabric to form soft, squeezable objects.
Although the fabric printer is similar in principle to laminated-object manufacturing, fabric presents cutting and handling challenges, which the researchers addressed in the design of the new printer.
The printer includes an upper cutting platform and a lower bonding platform. Fabric is fed into the device, where a vacuum holds the fabric against the upper cutting platform while a laser moves below it, cutting a rectangular piece out of the fabric. The laser then cuts the layer's desired two-dimensional shapes within that rectangle. The second set of cuts is left incomplete so the shapes receive support from the surrounding fabric during the fabrication process. After the cutting process is complete, the bonding platform heats and presses the fabric against previous layers. Once the entire process is concluded, the surrounding support fabric is torn away by hand to reveal the three-dimensional object.
The researchers will describe the printer this week at the ACM CHI 2015 annual conference in Seoul, Korea.
From Disney Research
View Full Article
Abstracts Copyright © 2015 Information Inc., Bethesda, Maryland, USA
No entries found