Interaction with virtual aesthetic shapes through a desktop mechatronic system

Abstract

In common industrial practice the definition of shapes of styling products is performed by product designers. They usually produce aesthetic shapes by handcrafting scale models made of malleable material like clay, and often expensive physical prototypes are also manufactured. The paper describes a Desktop Mechatronic System (DMS) that has been conceived to support designers in the creation, evaluation and modification of aesthetic virtual shapes. The objective in designing this system is to develop a system allowing a continuous and smooth free hand physical interaction with a virtual shape, which is rendered through a dynamic cross-sectional contour or curve in three-dimensional (3D) space. The DMS is a useful tool for designers, who are not certain about the quality of the shape of the product, and can use it for testing out ideas. The DMS consists of a servo-actuated developable metallic strip, which reproduces 3D cross-sectional contours, which has been devised and implemented by using the Minimal Energy Curve (MEC) spline approach in which the equidistant interpolation points scheme has been adopted to imitate the virtual object created via a Computer Aided Design (CAD) tool on a physical bendable strip-like surface.

Keywords:

• desktop mechatronic system
• 2D cross-section rendering
• virtual prototyping
• industrial design
• CAD associativity