LuxAct: Enhance Everyday Objects for Visual Sensing with Interaction-Powered IlluminationImbuing sensing and interactivity into everyday objects has long been sought after within the HCI community to facilitate richer and more immersive user experiences. However, conventional methods rely on costly hardware, such as embedded sensor tags, or passive visual markers that lack digital capabilities to sense user context. We present LuxAct, an interaction-powered visual communication system that enables everyday objects to encode their information and user interaction data into sequences of RGB color light. These sequences are decoded by Point of View (POV) cameras on AR headsets or smart glasses to derive meaningful information from interactions. LuxAct are self-powered and ultra-low-cost, leveraging striking and plucking on piezoelectric generators to harvest energy from user interactions. Through strategic pattern design, our system transforms visual channels into carriers of both object identification and sensory data, supporting applications with rich sensing needs. We demonstrated a wide range of use cases, including interactive controls, sensate storage, smart water hose, medicine reminder, fingertip probes and beyond, offering a practical alternative for digitalizing passive objects to enable ubiquitous sensing in AR-enhanced environments.2025XYZikun Yang et al.Haptic WearablesContext-Aware ComputingUIST
LumosX: 3D Printed Anisotropic Light-TransferLight's interaction with object surfaces through anisotropic reflection—where reflected light varies with viewing angles—offers significant potential for enhancing visual capabilities and assisting informed decision-making. Such ubiquitous light transfer phenomenon supports directional information encoding in sensing and dynamic display applications. We present LumosX, a set of techniques for encoding and decoding information through light intensity changes using 3D-printed optical anisotropic properties. By optimizing directional reflection and brightness contrasts through off-the-shelf materials and precise control over processing parameters (e.g., extrusion volume, raster angles, layer height, nozzle positioning), we enable cost-effective fabrication of visually enhanced objects. Our method supports modular assembly for highly curved regular surfaces and direct printing on top of relatively flat curved surfaces, enabling flexible information encoding for diverse applications. We showcase LumosX's effectiveness through various indoor and smart urban sensing scenarios, demonstrating significant improvements in both human interaction and autonomous machine perception.2025QLQian Lu et al.Texas A&M University, Computer Science & EngineeringDesktop 3D Printing & Personal FabricationShape-Changing Materials & 4D PrintingCHI
3DPFIX: Improving Remote Novices' 3D Printing Troubleshooting through Human-AI Collaboration DesignThe widespread consumer-grade 3D printers and learning resources online enable novices to self-train in remote settings. While troubleshooting plays an essential part of 3D printing, the process remains challenging for many remote novices even with the help of well-developed online sources, such as online troubleshooting archives and online community help. We conducted a formative study with 76 active 3D printing users to learn how remote novices leverage online resources in troubleshooting and their challenges. We found that remote novices cannot fully utilize online resources. For example, the online archives provide general information in a static way, making it hard to search and relate their unique cases with existing descriptions. Online communities can potentially ease their struggles by providing more targeted suggestions, but a helper who can provide custom help is rather scarce, making it hard to obtain timely assistance. We propose 3DPFIX, an interactive 3D troubleshooting system powered by the pipeline to facilitate Human-AI Collaboration, designed to improve novices' 3D printing experiences and thus help them easily accumulate their domain knowledge. We built 3DPFIX that supports automated diagnosis and solution-seeking. 3DPFIX was built upon shared dialogues about failure cases from Q&A discourses accumulated in online communities. We leverage social annotations (i.e., comments) to build an annotated failure image dataset for AI classifiers and extract a solution pool. Our summative study revealed that using 3DPFIX helped participants spend significantly less effort in diagnosing failures and finding a more accurate solution than relying on their common practice. We also found that 3DPFIX users learn about 3D printing domain-specific knowledge. We discuss the implications of leveraging community-driven data in developing future Human-AI collaboration designs.2024NKNahyun Kwon et al.Session 1e: Human-AI CollaborationCSCW
Unmake to Remake: Materiality-driven Rapid PrototypingWithin the domain of fabrication, the recent strides in Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) have sparked growing interest in its sustainability. In this work, we analyze the contemporary life cycle of polymers consumed in FDM, a common and accessible fabrication technique. Then we outline the points of design intervention to reduce wasted polymers in fabrication. Specifically, we discuss the design intervention of Filament Wiring, a set of hybrid craft techniques to promote sustainable prototyping and robust applications by highlighting left-over filaments. Our techniques aim to enhance the understanding of filaments as a unique material for hybrid fabrication, fostering creativity. Through our computational design system, end users can generate 3D printable frames, for exploring the possibilities of filament-based fabrication beyond 3D printing. We hope to provoke thought about filament as its own form of material, having capabilities to be made, unmade, and remade repeatedly into various artifacts. With this outlook, we discuss future research avenues, and urge makers and practitioners to value material in any form, quantity, or stage of its life cycle.2024HDHimani Deshpande et al.Desktop 3D Printing & Personal FabricationSustainable HCIUIST
AccessLens: Auto-detecting Inaccessibility of Everyday ObjectsIn our increasingly diverse society, everyday physical interfaces often present barriers, impacting individuals across various contexts. This oversight, from small cabinet knobs to identical wall switches that can pose different contextual challenges, highlights an imperative need for solutions. Leveraging low-cost 3D-printed augmentations such as knob magnifiers and tactile labels seems promising, yet the process of discovering unrecognized barriers remains challenging because disability is context-dependent. We introduce AccessLens, an end-to-end system designed to identify inaccessible interfaces in daily objects, and recommend 3D-printable augmentations for accessibility enhancement. Our approach involves training a detector using the novel AccessDB dataset designed to automatically recognize 21 distinct Inaccessibility Classes (e.g., bar-small and round-rotate) within 6 common object categories (e.g., handle and knob). AccessMeta serves as a robust way to build a comprehensive dictionary linking these accessibility classes to open-source 3D augmentation designs. Experiments demonstrate our detector's performance in detecting inaccessible objects.2024NKNahyun Kwon et al.Texas A&M UniversityMotor Impairment Assistive Input TechnologiesUniversal & Inclusive DesignSpecial Education TechnologyCHI
Reconfigurable Interfaces by Shape Change and Embedded MagnetsReconfigurable physical interfaces empower users to swiftly adapt to tailored design requirements or preferences. Shape-changing interfaces enable such reconfigurability, avoiding the cost of refabrication or part replacements. Nonetheless, reconfigurable interfaces are often bulky, expensive, or inaccessible. We propose a reversible shape-changing mechanism that enables reconfigurable 3D printed structures via translations and rotations of parts. We investigate fabrication techniques that enable reconfiguration using magnets and the thermoplasticity of heated polymer. Proposed interfaces achieve tunable haptic feedback and adjustment of different user affordances by reconfiguring input motions. The design space is demonstrated through applications in rehabilitation, embodied communication, accessibility, safety, and gaming.2024HDHimani Deshpande et al.Texas A&M UniversityForce Feedback & Pseudo-Haptic WeightShape-Changing Interfaces & Soft Robotic MaterialsShape-Changing Materials & 4D PrintingCHI
E3D: Harvesting Energy from Everyday Kinetic Interactions Using 3D Printed Attachment Mechanisms"The increase of distributed embedded systems has enabled pervasive sensing, actuation, and information displays across buildings and surrounding environments, yet also entreats huge cost expenditure for energy and human labor for maintenance. Our daily interactions, from opening a window to closing a drawer to twisting a doorknob, are great potential sources of energy but are often neglected. Existing commercial devices to harvest energy from these ambient sources are unaffordable, and DIY solutions are left with inaccessibility for non-experts preventing fully imbuing daily innovations in end-users. We present E3D, an end-to-end fabrication toolkit to customize self-powered smart devices at low cost. We contribute to a taxonomy of everyday kinetic activities that are potential sources of energy, a library of parametric mechanisms to harvest energy from manual operations of kinetic objects, and a holistic design system for end-user developers to capture design requirements by demonstrations then customize augmentation devices to harvest energy that meets unique lifestyle." https://doi.org/10.1145/36108972023AAAbul Al Arabi et al.Ubiquitous ComputingDesktop 3D Printing & Personal FabricationCustomizable & Personalized ObjectsUbiComp
Measurement Patterns: User-Oriented Strategies for Dealing with Measurements and Dimensions in Making ProcessesThe majority of errors in making processes can be tracked back to errors in dimensional specifications. While technical aspects of measurement, such as precision and speed have been extensively studied in metrology, the user aspects of measurement received significantly less attention. While little research exists that specifically addresses the user aspects of handling dimensions, various systems have been built that embed new interactive modalities, processes, and techniques which significantly impact how users deal with dimensions or conduct measurements. However, these features are mostly hidden in larger system contributions. To uncover and articulate these techniques, we conducted a holistic literature survey on measurement practices in crafting techniques and systems for rapid prototyping. Based on this survey, we contribute 10 measurement patterns, which describe reusable elements and solutions for common difficulties when dealing with dimensions throughout workflows for making physical artifacts.2023RRRaf Ramakers et al.Flanders Make - Expertise Centre for Digital MediaDesktop 3D Printing & Personal FabricationCircuit Making & Hardware PrototypingCHI
ShrinkCells: Localized and Sequential Shape-Changing Actuation of 3D-Printed Objects via Selective HeatingThe unique behaviors of thermoplastic polymers enable shape-changing interfaces made of 3D printed objects that do not require complex electronics integration. While existing techniques greatly rely on external heat applied globally on a 3D printed object to initiate all at once the shape-changing behavior (e.g., hot water, heat gun, oven), independent control of multiple parts of the object becomes nearly impossible. We introduce ShrinkCells, a set of shape-changing actuators that rely on localized heat to shrink or bend. This is achieved by combining the properties of two materials --- conductive PLA is used to generate localized heat that selectively triggers the shrinking of a Shape Memory Polymer. The unique benefit of ShrinkCells is their capability of triggering simultaneous or sequential shape transformations for different geometries using a single power supply. The result is 3D printed rigid structures that actuate in sequence, avoiding self-collisions when unfolding. We contribute to the body of literature on 4D fabrication by a systematic investigation of selective heating with two different materials, the design and evaluation of the ShrinkCells shape-changing primitives, and applications demonstrating the usage of these actuators.2022KMKongpyung Moon et al.Shape-Changing Interfaces & Soft Robotic MaterialsShape-Changing Materials & 4D PrintingUIST
Mobiot: Augmenting Everyday Objects into Moving IoT Devices Using 3D Printed Attachments Generated by DemonstrationRecent advancements in personal fabrication have brought novices closer to a reality, where they can automate routine tasks with mobilized everyday objects. However, the overall process remains challenging- from capturing design requirements and motion planning to authoring them to creating 3D models of mechanical parts to programming electronics, as it demands expertise. We introduce Mobiot, an end-user toolkit to help non-experts capture the design and motion requirements of legacy objects by demonstration. It then automatically generates 3D printable attachments, programs to operate assembled modules, a list of off-the-shelf electronics, and assembly tutorials. The authoring feature further assists users to fine-tune as well as to reuse existing motion libraries and 3D printed mechanisms to adapt to other real-world objects with different motions. We validate Mobiot through application examples with 8 everyday objects with various motions applied, and through technical evaluation to measure the accuracy of motion reconstruction.2022AAAbul Al Arabi et al.Texas A&M UniversityDesktop 3D Printing & Personal FabricationCircuit Making & Hardware PrototypingCustomizable & Personalized ObjectsCHI
Roman: Making Everyday Objects Robotically Manipulable with 3D-Printable Add-on MechanismsOne important vision of robotics is to provide physical assistance by manipulating different everyday objects, e.g., hand tools, kitchen utensils. However, many objects designed for dexterous hand-control are not easily manipulable by a single robotic arm with a generic parallel gripper. Complementary to existing research on developing grippers and control algorithms, we present Roman, a suite of hardware design and software tool support for robotic engineers to create 3D printable mechanisms attached to everyday handheld objects, making them easier to be manipulated by conventional robotic arms. The Roman hardware comes with a versatile magnetic gripper that can snap on/off handheld objects and drive add-on mechanisms to perform tasks. Roman also provides software support to register and author control programs. To validate our approach, we designed and fabricated Roman mechanisms for 14 everyday objects/tasks presented within a design space and conducted expert interviews with robotic engineers indicating that Roman serves as a practical alternative for enabling robotic manipulation of everyday objects.2022JLJiahao Li et al.UCLADesktop 3D Printing & Personal FabricationCHI
HowDIY: Towards Meta-Design Tools to Support Anyone to 3D Print AnywhereThe promise of anyone being able to 3D print anywhere relies on both technological advances and incremental shifts in social organizations to trigger changes in human behavior. While research has focused on how people learn aspects of printing processes, such as expressively utilizing design-software and operating fabrication-machinery, this work explores how anyone may gain an understanding of what can be 3D printed through computationally-guided exploration of online resources and 3D printing facilities. Investigations surrounding online printing services reveal accessible 3D printing processes that do not require end-users to have experience with design-software or fabrication-machinery, only requiring end-users to specify printable ideas. We present these accessible printing processes alongside associated technologies in a meta-design framework for supporting end-users’ specification of 3D printing ideas. Informed by this framework and a series of formative studies, we designed the website HowDIY to introduce anyone to 3D printing by encouraging and facilitating the intelligent exploration of various online resources. HowDIY was deployed over several weeks with diverse newcomers to 3D printing, validating that intelligent user interfaces can support anyone to participate in the utilization and design of 3D printing tools and processes.2021ABAlexander Berman et al.Aging-Friendly Technology DesignDesktop 3D Printing & Personal FabricationIUI
EscapeLoom: Fabricating New Affordances for Hand WeavingHand-weaving is a beloved craft in history, holding promise for many opportunities in making from flat sheet fabrics to smart textiles. To afford new weaving experiences, we explore how 3D printed custom weaving tools interplay with different materiality, augmenting the design space of weaving. We propose novel weaving techniques enabled by 3D printed custom tools: (1) water-soluble draft to synchronize design intention and practice, (2) flexible warps to guide complex patterns and to shape resulting object, and (3) rigid global geometry for woven artifacts in 3D. EscapeLoom as a computational design tool enables users to employ various parameters in their computational design, and showcases many creative possibilities that move away from the traditional definition of a loom to dive into what more it can be.2021HDHimani Deshpande et al.Texas A&M UniversityShape-Changing Materials & 4D PrintingMakerspace CultureCHI
Programmable Filament: Printed Filaments for Multi-material 3D PrintingFrom full-color objects to functional capacitive artifacts, 3D printing multi-materials became essential to broaden the application areas of digital fabrication. We present Programmable Filament, a novel technique that enables multi-material printing using a commodity FDM 3D printer, requiring no hardware upgrades. Our technique builds upon an existing printing technique in which multiple filament segments are printed and spliced into a single threaded filament. We propose an end-toend pipeline for 3D printing an object in multi-materials, with an introduction of the design systems for end-users. Optimized for low-cost, single-nozzle FDM 3D printers, the system is built upon our computational analysis and experiments to enhance its validity over various printers and materials to design and produce a programmable filament. Finally, we discuss application examples and speculate the future with its potential, such as custom filament manufacturing on-demand.2020HTHaruki Takahashi et al.Desktop 3D Printing & Personal FabricationCircuit Making & Hardware PrototypingUIST
Romeo: A Design Tool for Embedding Transformable Parts in 3D Models to Robotically Augment Default FunctionalitiesReconfiguring shapes of objects enables transforming existing passive objects with robotic functionalities, e.g., a transformable coffee cup holder can be attached to a chair’s armrest, a piggybank can reach out an arm to ’steal’ coins. Despite the advance in end-user 3D design and fabrication, it remains challenging for non-experts to create such ‘transformables’ using existing tools due to the requirement of specific engineering knowledge such as mechanisms and robotic design. We present Romeo—a design tool for creating transformables embedded into a 3D model to robotically augment the object’s default functionalities. Romeo allows users to express at a high level, (1) which part of the object to be transformed, (2) how it moves following motion points in space, and (3) the corresponding action to be taken. Romeo then automatically generates a robotic arm embedded in the transformable part ready for fabrication. We validated Romeo with a design session where 8 participants design and create custom transformables using 3D objects of their own choice.2020JLJiahao Li et al.Desktop 3D Printing & Personal FabricationCustomizable & Personalized ObjectsMakerspace CultureUIST