Computational Fabrication

COURSE OBJECTIVES

The course introduces an interdisciplinary set of techniques for digitizing real objects, manipulating these digital representations, and turning them back into real objects. The inspirations for the course are novel 3D printers that enable fabricating complex objects with a press of a button.

COURSE DESCRIPTION

The first part of the course describes computer vision and graphics techniques used to represent, model, manipulate and scan 3D objects. Next, it provides an introduction to 3D printing, discussing the key opportunities. The second half of the course is dedicated to computational techniques for turning digital designs into real objects. After introducing relevant numerical optimization and simulation techniques, the course discusses recent advances in the computational fabrication field. The examples include methods for fabricating objects with prescribed visual, optical, and mechanical properties and novel tools for customizing 3D prints.

LEARNING METHODS

The course is a series of lectures with labs. Students will implement different techniques and get hands-on experience with 3D printers.

EXAMINATION INFORMATION
The final grade is a result of the grades from the assignments and the final exam.

REFERENCES
As the course covers topics from many disciplines of computer science, there is no good reference this course covers. All the required materials will be provided during the course.

For an overview of some of the advanced topics covered in the course, please check the following reference:

• Umetani, Nobuyuki, Bernd Bickel, and Wojciech Matusik. "Computational tools for 3D printing." SIGGRAPH Courses 9 (2015): 1. (http://computational-fabrication.com/2015/)