Title
WirePrint: 3D printed previews for fast prototyping
Abstract
Even though considered a rapid prototyping tool, 3D printing is so slow that a reasonably sized object requires printing overnight. This slows designers down to a single iteration per day. In this paper, we propose to instead print low-fidelity wireframe previews in the early stages of the design process. Wireframe previews are 3D prints in which surfaces have been replaced with a wireframe mesh. Since wireframe previews are to scale and represent the overall shape of the 3D object, they allow users to quickly verify key aspects of their 3D design, such as the ergonomic fit. To maximize the speed-up, we instruct 3D printers to extrude filament not layer-by-layer, but directly in 3D-space, allowing them to create the edges of the wireframe model directly one stroke at a time. This allows us to achieve speed-ups of up to a factor of 10 compared to traditional layer-based printing. We demonstrate how to achieve wireframe previews on standard FDM 3D printers, such as the PrintrBot or the Kossel mini. Users only need to install the WirePrint software, making our approach applicable to many 3D printers already in use today. Finally, wireframe previews use only a fraction of material required for a regular print, making it even more affordable to iterate.
Year
DOI
Venue
2014
10.1145/2642918.2647359
UIST
Keywords
Field
DocType
3d printing,rapid prototyping,user interfaces
Rapid prototyping,Computer graphics (images),Computer science,Software,3d design,Engineering design process,3D printing
Conference
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
61
2.50
13
Authors
7
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Stefanie Mueller135840.04
Sangha Im2612.50
Serafima Gurevich3642.92
Alexander Teibrich4612.50
Lisa Pfisterer5612.50
Francois Guimbretière6125783.50
Patrick Baudisch74611263.11