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Uncertainty in Measurement

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Kim, J., Guo, A., Yeh, T., Hudson, S. E., & Mankoff, J. (2017, June). Understanding Uncertainty in Measurement and Accommodating its Impact in 3D Modeling and Printing. In Proceedings of the 2017 Conference on Designing Interactive Systems (pp. 1067-1078). ACM.

3D printing enables everyday users to augment objects around them with personalized adaptations. There has been a proliferation of 3D models available on sharing platforms supporting this. If a model is parametric, a novice modeler can obtain a custom model simply by entering a few parameters (e.g., in the Customizer tool on Thingiverse.com). In theory, such custom models could fit any real world object one intends to augment. But in practice, a printed model seldom fits on the first try; multiple iterations are often necessary, wasting a considerable amount of time and material. We argue that parameterization or scaling alone is not sufficient for customizability, because users must correctly measure an object to specify parameters.

In a study of attempts to measure length, angle, and diameter, we demonstrate measurement errors as a significant (yet often overlooked) factor that adversely impacts the adaptation of 3D models to existing objects, requiring increased iteration. Images taken from our study are shown below.

Bulb is not correctly lined up with ruler
Ruler is bent, introducing error
Edge of phone is curved, and length difficult to measure

We argue for a new design principle—accommodating measurement uncertainty—that designers as well as novices should begin to consider. We offer two strategies—modular joint and, buffer insertion—to help designers to build models that are robust to measurement uncertainty. Examples shown below.

 

 

Volunteer AT Fabricators

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Perry-Hill, J., Shi, P., Mankoff, J. & Ashbrook, D. Understanding Volunteer AT Fabricators: Opportunities and Challenges in DIY-AT for Others in e-NABLE. Accepted to CHI 2017

We present the results of a study of e-NABLE, a distributed, collaborative volunteer effort to design and fabricate upper-limb assistive technology devices for limb-different users. Informed by interviews with 14 stakeholders in e-NABLE, including volunteers and clinicians, we discuss differences and synergies among each group with respect to motivations, skills, and perceptions of risks inherent in the project. We found that both groups are motivated to be involved in e-NABLE by the ability to use their skills to help others, and that their skill sets are complementary, but that their different perceptions of risk may result in uneven outcomes or missed expectations for end users. We offer four opportunities for design and technology to enhance the stakeholders’ abilities to work together.

Screen Shot 2017-03-14 at 1.09.13 PMA variety of 3D-printed upper-limb assistive technology devices designed and produced by volunteers in the e-NABLE community. Photos were taken by the fourth author in the e-NABLE lab on RIT’s campus.

Tactile Interfaces to Appliances

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Anhong Guo, Jeeeun Kim, Xiang ‘Anthony’ Chen, Tom Yeh, Scott E. Hudson, Jennifer Mankoff, & Jeffrey P. Bigham, Facade: Auto-generating Tactile Interfaces to Appliances, In Proceedings of the 35th Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI’17), Denver, CO (To appear)

Common appliances have shifted toward flat interface panels, making them inaccessible to blind people. Although blind people can label appliances with Braille stickers, doing so generally requires sighted assistance to identify the original functions and apply the labels. We introduce Facade – a crowdsourced fabrication pipeline to help blind people independently make physical interfaces accessible by adding a 3D printed augmentation of tactile buttons overlaying the original panel. Facade users capture a photo of the appliance with a readily available fiducial marker (a dollar bill) for recovering size information. This image is sent to multiple crowd workers, who work in parallel to quickly label and describe elements of the interface. Facade then generates a 3D model for a layer of tactile and pressable buttons that fits over the original controls. Finally, a home 3D printer or commercial service fabricates the layer, which is then aligned and attached to the interface by the blind person. We demonstrate the viability of Facade in a study with 11 blind participants.

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3D Printing with Embedded Textiles

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Stretching the Bounds of 3D Printing with Embedded Textiles

Textiles are an old and well developed technology that have many desirable characteristics. They can be easily folded, twisted, deformed, or cut; some can be stretched; many are soft. Textiles can maintain their shape when placed under tension and can even be engineered with variable stretching ability.

When combined, textiles and 3D printing open up new opportunities for rapidly creating rigid objects with embedded flexibility as well as soft materials imbued with additional functionality. We introduce a suite of techniques for integrating the two and demonstrate how the malleability, stretchability and aesthetic qualities of textiles can enhance rigid printed objects, and how textiles can be augmented with functional properties enabled by 3D printing.

Click images below to see more detail:

Citation

Rivera, M.L., Moukperian, M., Ashbrook, D., Mankoff, J., Hudson, S.E. 2017. Stretching the Bounds of 3D Printing with Embedded Textiles. To appear in to the annual ACM conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. CHI ‘17. [Paper]

Printable Adaptations

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Reprise: A Design Tool for Specifying, Generating, and Customizing 3D Printable Adaptations on Everyday Objects

Reprise is a tool for creating custom adaptive 3D printable designs for making it easier to manipulate everything from tools to zipper pulls. Reprise’s library is based on a survey of about 3,000 assistive technology and life hacks drawn from textbooks on the topic as well as Thingiverse. Using Reprise, it is possible to specify a type of action (such as grasp or pull), indicate the direction of action on a 3D model of the object being adapted, parameterize the action in a simple GUI, specify an attachment method, and produce a 3D model that is ready to print.

Xiang ‘Anthony’ Chen, Jeeeun Kim, Jennifer Mankoff, Tovi Grossman, Stelian Coros, Scott Hudson (2016). Reprise: A Design Tool for Specifying, Generating, and Customizing 3D Printable Adaptations on Everyday Objects. Proceedings of the 29th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST 2016) (pdf)

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A Knitting Machine Compiler

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A teddy bear wearing a knit hat, scarf (with pocket) and sweaterAlthough industrial knitting machines can automatically produce a wide range of garments, they are programmed through onerous means such as pixel level image manipulation. This limits the potential for automation of knitted object design, re-use of object components, and narrows the audience able to design for these machines. Our contribution is a visual design interface for specifying objects in terms of tubes and sheets and a compiler that can convert such an object into knittable machine instructions which handle knotty issues such as transfer planning (among needles) correctly. We demonstrate the range of objects our approach supports by example.

A Compiler for 3D Machine Knitting (SIGGRAPH 2016) Jim McCann, Lea Albaugh,
Vidya Narayanan, April Grow, Wojciech Matusik, Jennifer Mankoff, Jessica Hodgins

RapID — interactive RFID

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RapID – A framework for fabricating low-latency interactive objects with RFID tags

RFID tags can be used to add inexpensive, wireless, batteryless sensing to objects. However, quickly and accurately estimating the state of an RFID tag is difficult. In this work, we show how to achieve low-latency manipulation and movement sensing with off-the-shelf RFID tags and readers. Our approach couples a probabilistic filtering layer with a monte- carlo-sampling-based interaction layer, preserving uncertainty in tag reads until they can be resolved in the context of interactions. This allows designers’ code to reason about inputs at a high level. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach with a number of interactive objects, along with a library of components that can be combined to make new designs.

bestRapID: A Framework for Fabricating Low-Latency Interactive Objects with RFID Tags (CHI 2016, Page 5897) Andrew Spielberg, Alanson Sample, Scott E. Hudson, Jennifer Mankoff, James McCann

mixer-use quiz-use tic-tac-toe-play
pong-use pong-build tic-tac-toe-sketchup

Threadsteading

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In work done collaboratively with Disney Research Pittsburgh and led by Gillian Smith of Northeastern we explored a multi-player game that can be embedded into a quilting and/or embroidery machine interface. Gameplay is constrained by the fact that only a single thread of fabric can be drawn over time. Players compete to ‘scout’ over a map (a hex grid), where different hexes have different costs to explore.

Threadsteading map and custom control panel for quilting machine (light sunder fabric)

Threadsteading was accepted to Alt.CTRL.GDC.

G. Smith, A. Grow, C. Liu, L. Albaugh, J. Mankoff and J. McCann. Threadsteading: A single-line, two-player, territory-control game for quilting and embroidery machines. alt.ctrl.GDC 2016.

3D printed attachments

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Encore: 3D printed attachments

What happens when you want to 3D print something that must interact with the real world? The Encore project makes it possible to 3D print objects that must attach to things in the real world. Encore provides an interface that, given an imported object and a chosen attachment method, visualizes metrics relating the goodness of the attachment. In addition, once an attachment type and location is chosen, Encore helps to produce the necessary support structure for attachment. Encore supports three main types of attachment: print-over, print-to-affix, and print-through.

Print-Over

Print-over attachments are printed directly on the existing object. This works well if the object is flat enough that the print head won’t encounter obstacles as it moves, and the object is made of a material that the printed material will easily adhere to. Encore helps by finding a rotation of the existing object that minimizes obstacles, and generating support material to hold the existing object in place.

Printing a magnet holder over a Teddy bear toy.
 
Left: printing an LED casing on a battery to make a simple torch; right: printing a handle to an espresso cup.
 

Print-to-Affix

An alternative that is useful when the existing object does not fit on the print bed is print-to-affix. In this approach, the attachment is designed to fit snugly against the existing object. It may be glued in place, or can include holes for a strap, such as a zip tie.

Left: printing a structure to make a glue gun stand; right: printing a reusable four-pack holder.
 

Print-Through

Finally, sometimes the attachment should be interlocked more loosely with the existing object. In this case, the process is to begin printing and stop the print partway through so that the existing object can be inserted. Encore can compute when this stopping point should be (and
whether it is possible)

A name tag printed through a pair of scissors
 
A bracelet printed through a charm
 

Encore the Design Tool

Encore is implemented in WebGL. It supports importation of an existing object, selection of an attachment, and then lets the user click to indicate where the attachment will go. Given this information, it uses geometric analysis to compute metrics for goodness of attachment, such as attachability and strength. Encore visualizes them using a heat map so that the user can adjust the attachment point.


Encore visualizes which parts of a wrench are more attachable when printing over a handle.

More Examples


Using print-to-affix to make a trophy from an egg holder
 

Using print-over to make a minion keychain
 

Using print-over to add a hanger to a screwdriver handle
 

Using print-through to make a key ring.
 

Using print-to-affix to make a battery case
 
Xiang ‘Anthony’ Chen, Stelian Coros, Jennifer Mankoff, Scott Hudson (2015). Encore: 3D Printed Augmentation of Everyday Objects with Printed-Over, Affixed and Interlocked Attachments. Proceedings of the 28th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST 2015)

Helping Hands

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Prosthetic limbs and assistive technology (AT) require customization and modification over time to effectively meet the needs of end users. Yet, this process is typically costly and, as a result, abandonment rates are very high. Rapid prototyping technologies such as 3D printing have begun to alleviate this issue by making it possible to inexpensively, and iteratively create general AT designs and prosthetics. However for effective use, technology must be applied using design methods that support physical rapid prototyping and can accommodate the unique needs of a specific user. While most research has focused on the tools for creating fitted assistive devices, we focus on the requirements of a design process that engages the user and designer in the rapid iterative prototyping of prosthetic devices.

We present a case study of three participants with upper-limb amputations working with researchers to design prosthetic devices for specific tasks. Kevin wanted to play the cello, Ellen wanted to ride a hand-cycle (a bicycle for people with lower limb mobility impairments), and Bret wanted to use a table knife. Our goal was to identify requirements for a design process that can engage the assistive technology user in rapidly prototyping assistive devices that fill needs not easily met by traditional assistive technology. Our study made use of 3D printing and other playful and practical prototyping materials. We discuss materials that support on-the-spot design and iteration, dimensions along which in-person iteration is most important (such as length and angle) and the value of a supportive social network for users who prototype their own assistive technology. From these findings we argue for the importance of extensions in supporting modularity, community engagement, and relatable prototyping materials in the iterative design of prosthetics

Prosthetic limbs and assistive technology (AT) require customization and modification over time to effectively meet the needs of end users. Yet, this process is typically costly and, as a result, abandonment rates are very high. Rapid prototyping technologies such as 3D printing have begun to alleviate this issue by making it possible to inexpensively, and iteratively create general AT designs and prosthetics. However for effective use, technology must be applied using design methods that support physical rapid prototyping and can accommodate the unique needs of a specific user. While most research has focused on the tools for creating fitted assistive devices, we focus on the requirements of a design process that engages the user and designer in the rapid iterative prototyping of prosthetic devices.

We present a case study of three participants with upper-limb amputations working with researchers to design prosthetic devices for specific tasks. Kevin wanted to play the cello, Ellen wanted to ride a hand-cycle (a bicycle for people with lower limb mobility impairments), and Bret wanted to use a table knife. Our goal was to identify requirements for a design process that can engage the assistive technology user in rapidly prototyping assistive devices that fill needs not easily met by traditional assistive technology. Our study made use of 3D printing and other playful and practical prototyping materials. We discuss materials that support on-the-spot design and iteration, dimensions along which in-person iteration is most important (such as length and angle) and the value of a supportive social network for users who prototype their own assistive technology. From these findings we argue for the importance of extensions in supporting modularity, community engagement, and relatable prototyping materials in the iterative design of prosthetics

Photos

The length of his arm, significantly impacted Kevin’s ability to play the cello. During the prototyping process he was able to test a variety of lengths by adding on layers of Lego to his prototyping prosthetic.
Kevin enjoys his latest cello bow holder so much that, according to his mother, she’s not allowed to touch or adjust it in case it gets messed up.
“Life changing technology can come in many forms; it can come in the form of Styrofoam and pipe cleaners,” Said one participant while working on adjusting the angle of her prosthetic to maximize her comfort while gripping a hand-cycle.
This 3D printed prosthetic demonstrates the value of creating prosthetics for a very specific task (in this case control of a hand-bike), and the importance of manipulating factors such as angle.
Brett M. Fadgen MSN, CRNA. is a practicing Nurse Anesthetist with an amputation below his left elbow. He has customized his profesional grade prosthetics to help him perform nursing tasks.
Despite having a wide variety of professionaly designed prosthetic devices, Bret never found a good solution for using a common table knife. Using 3D scanning technology and modeling clay we were able to design a custom grip that could stabilize the knife in his myoelectric hand.

Project Files

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2365703

Project Publications

Helping Hands: Requirements for a Prototyping Methodology for Upper-limb Prosthetics Users

Reference:

Megan Kelly Hofmann, Jeffery Harris, Scott E Hudson, Jennifer Mankoff. 2016.Helping Hands: Requirements for a Prototyping Methodology for Upper-limb Prosthetics Users. InProceedings of the 34th Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’16). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 525-534.

Making Connections: Modular 3D Printing for Designing Assistive Attachments to Prosthetic Devices

Reference:

Megan Kelly Hofmann. 2015. Making Connections: Modular 3D Printing for Designing Assistive Attachments to Prosthetic Devices. In Proceedings of the 17th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers & Accessibility (ASSETS ’15). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 353-354. DOI=http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2700648.2811323