FastForce: Real-Time Reinforcement of Laser-Cut Structures

Muhammad Abdullah, Martin Taraz, Yannis Kommana, Shohei Katakura, Robert Kovacs, Jotaro Shigeyama, Thijs Roumen, and Patrick Baudisch

FastForce is a software tool that detects structural flaws in laser-cut 3D models and fixes them by introducing additional plates into the model, thereby making models up to 52x stronger. By focusing on a specific type of structural issue, i.e., poorly connected sub-structures in closed box structures, fastForce achieves real-time performance. This allows fastForce to fix structural issues continuously in the background, while users stay focused on editing their models and without ever becoming aware of any structural issues.

(a) The handle of this laser-cut wheelbarrow breaks, when the user is trying to lift a heavy load. (b) fastForce addresses this. The moment the user clicks in the editor to create the handle, (c) not only the handle appears, but fastForce also detects the resulting point of failure and resolves it in real-time by extending the lower plate of the handle into the internal space of the wheelbarrow. (d) The resulting model has the same outer shape as the original model, yet allows lifting loads that are 45x times higher. Note that fastForce has detected additional points of failure (black arrows 2-7) and has generated corresponding reinforcement (white 2-7).

The six main types of structural issues of closed box structures and some of the manually designed sets of reinforcement options.

The reinforced test objects. Numbers indicate the factor of increase in strength after fastForce’s reinforcement.

Publication

Muhammad Abdullah, Martin Taraz, Yannis Kommana, Shohei Katakura, Robert Kovacs, Jotaro Shigeyama, Thijs Roumen , and Patrick Baudisch
fastForce: Real-Time Reinforcement of Laser-Cut Structures
In Proceedings of CHI'21
Paper PDF | Demo video (youtube) | ACM DL

FastForce: Real-Time Reinforcement of Laser-Cut Structures

Publication

The Human Computer Interaction Lab

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