Abstract
We present an interactive design system that allows casual users to quickly create 3D-printable robotic creatures. Our approach automates the tedious parts of the design process while providing ample room for customization of morphology, proportions, gait and motion style. The technical core of our framework is an efficient optimization-based solution that generates stable motions for legged robots of arbitrary designs. An intuitive set of editing tools allows the user to interactively explore the space of feasible designs and to study the relationship between morphological features and the resulting motions. Fabrication blueprints are generated automatically such that the robot designs can be manufactured using 3D-printing and off-the-shelf servo motors. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our solution by designing six robotic creatures with a variety of morphological features: two, four or five legs, point or area feet, actuated spines and different proportions. We validate the feasibility of the designs generated with our system through physics simulations and physically-fabricated prototypes.
Supplemental Material
Available for Download
Supplemental files.
- Auerbach, J., Aydin, D., Maesani, A., Kornatowski, P., Cieslewski, T., Heitz, G., Fernando, P., Loshchilov, I., Daler, L., and Floreano, D. 2014. RoboGen: Robot Generation through Artificial Evolution. In Artificial Life 14: Proceedings of the Fourteenth International Conference on the Synthesis and Simulation of Living Systems, The MIT Press, 136--137.Google Scholar
- Bächer, M., Bickel, B., James, D. L., and Pfister, H. 2012. Fabricating articulated characters from skinned meshes. In Proc. of ACM SIGGRAPH '12.Google Scholar
- Bächer, M., Whiting, E., Bickel, B., and Sorkine-Hornung, O. 2014. Spin-It: Optimizing moment of inertia for spinnable objects. ACM Transactions on Graphics (proceedings of ACM SIGGRAPH) 33, 4, 96:1--96:10. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Calì, J., Calian, D., Amati, C., Kleinberger, R., Steed, A., Kautz, J., and Weyrich, T. 2012. 3D-printing of non-assembly, articulated models. In Proc. of ACM SIGGRAPH Asia '12.Google Scholar
- Ceylan, D., Li, W., Mitra, N. J., Agrawala, M., and Pauly, M. 2013. Designing and fabricating mechanical automata from mocap sequences. In Proc. of ACM SIGGRAPH Asia '13. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Coros, S., Thomaszewski, B., Noris, G., Sueda, S., Forberg, M., Sumner, R. W., Matusik, W., and Bickel, B. 2013. Computational design of mechanical characters. In Proc. of ACM SIGGRAPH '13. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Dimitrov, D., Wieber, P.-B., Ferreau, H., and Diehl, M. 2008. On the implementation of model predictive control for online walking pattern generation. In Robotics and Automation, 2008. ICRA 2008. IEEE International Conference on, 2685--2690.Google Scholar
- Gertz, E. M., and Wright, S. J. 2003. Object-oriented software for quadratic programming. ACM Trans. Math. Softw. 29, 1, 58--81. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Hecker, C., Raabe, B., Enslow, R. W., DeWeese, J., Maynard, J., and van Prooijen, K. 2008. Real-time motion retargeting to highly varied user-created morphologies. In Proc. of ACM SIGGRAPH '08. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Kajita, S., Kanehiro, F., Kaneko, K., Fujiwara, K., and Yokoi, K. H. K. 2003. Biped walking pattern generation by using preview control of zero-moment point. In in Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 1620--1626.Google Scholar
- Koo, B., Li, W., Yao, J., Agrawala, M., and Mitra, N. J. 2014. Creating works-like prototypes of mechanical objects. ACM Transactions on Graphics (Special issue of SIGGRAPH Asia 2014). Google ScholarDigital Library
- Lau, M., Ohgawara, A., Mitani, J., and Igarashi, T. 2011. Converting 3D furniture models to fabricatable parts and connectors. In Proc. of ACM SIGGRAPH '11. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Leger, P. C. 1999. Automated Synthesis and Optimization of Robot Configurations: An Evolutionary Approach. PhD thesis, Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Lipson, H., and Pollack, J. B. 2000. Towards continuously reconfigurable self-designing robotics. In ICRA, IEEE, 1761--1766.Google Scholar
- Mastalli, C., Winkler, A., Havoutis, I., Caldwell, D. G., and Semini, C. 2015. On-line and on-board planning and perception for quadrupedal locomotion. In 2015 IEEE International Conference on Technologies for Practical Robot Applications (TEPRA), IEEE.Google Scholar
- Mehta, A. M., and Rus, D. 2014. An end-to-end system for designing mechanical structures for print-and-fold robots. In IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA).Google Scholar
- Mehta, A. M., DelPreto, J., Shaya, B., and Rus, D. 2014. Cogeneration of mechanical, electrical, and software designs for printable robots from structural specifications. In IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS).Google Scholar
- Mordatch, I., Todorov, E., and Popović, Z. 2012. Discovery of complex behaviors through contact-invariant optimization. ACM Trans. Graph. 31, 4 (July), 43:1--43:8. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Neuhaus, P., Pratt, J., and Johnson, M. 2011. Comprehensive summary of the institute for human and machine cognition's experience with littledog. International Journal Of Robotics Research 30, 2 (Feb.), 216--235. Google ScholarDigital Library
- ODE, 2007. Open dynamics engine, http://www.ode.org/.Google Scholar
- Prévost, R., Whiting, E., Lefebvre, S., and Sorkine-Hornung, O. 2013. Make it stand: Balancing shapes for 3d fabrication. In Proc. of ACM SIGGRAPH '13, 81:1--81:10.Google Scholar
- Sims, K. 1994. Evolving virtual creatures. In Proceedings of the 21st Annual Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques, ACM, New York, NY, USA, SIGGRAPH '94, 15--22. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Skouras, M., Thomaszewski, B., Coros, S., Bickel, B., and Gross, M. 2013. Computational design of actuated deformable characters. In Proc. of ACM SIGGRAPH '13. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Thomaszewski, B., Coros, S., Gauge, D., Megaro, V., Grinspun, E., and Gross, M. 2014. Computational design of linkage-based characters. In Proc. of ACM SIGGRAPH '14. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Umetani, N., Igarashi, T., and Mitra, N. J. 2012. Guided exploration of physically valid shapes for furniture design. In Proc. of ACM SIGGRAPH '12. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Umetani, N., Koyama, Y., Schmidt, R., and Igarashi, T. 2014. Pteromys: Interactive design and optimization of free-formed free-flight model airplanes. ACM Trans. Graph. 33, 4 (July), 65:1--65:10. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Wampler, K., and Popović, Z. 2009. Optimal gait and form for animal locomotion. ACM Trans. Graph. 28, 3 (July), 60:1--60:8. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Wampler, K., and Popović, Z. 2009. Optimal gait and form for animal locomotion. In ACM SIGGRAPH 2009 Papers, ACM, New York, NY, USA, SIGGRAPH '09, 60:1--60:8. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Wampler, K., Popović, Z., and Popović, J. 2014. Generalizing locomotion style to new animals with inverse optimal regression. ACM Trans. Graph. 33, 4 (July), 49:1--49:11. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Witkin, A., and Kass, M. 1988. Spacetime constraints. In Proceedings of the 15th Annual Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques, ACM, New York, NY, USA, SIGGRAPH '88, 159--168. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Zhu, L., Xu, W., Snyder, J., Liu, Y., Wang, G., and Guo, B. 2012. Motion-guided mechanical toy modeling. In Proc. of ACM SIGGRAPH Asia '12. Google ScholarDigital Library
Index Terms
- Interactive design of 3D-printable robotic creatures
Recommendations
Skaterbots: optimization-based design and motion synthesis for robotic creatures with legs and wheels
We present a computation-driven approach to design optimization and motion synthesis for robotic creatures that locomote using arbitrary arrangements of legs and wheels. Through an intuitive interface, designers first create unique robots by combining ...
Creating Interactive Robotic Characters: Through a combination of artificial intelligence and professional animation
HRI'15 Extended Abstracts: Proceedings of the Tenth Annual ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction Extended AbstractsWe are integrating artificial intelligent agents with generic animation systems in order to provide socially interactive robots with expressive behavior defined by animation artists. Such animators will therefore be able to apply principles of ...
Stylized robotic clay sculpting
Highlights- An interactive design system to design sculpting styles and robotically fabricate on clay material.
Graphical abstractDisplay Omitted
AbstractThis paper presents an interactive design system that allows the user to create and fabricate stylized sculptures in water-based clay, using a standard 6-axis robot arm. This system facilitates the materialization of abstract design ...
Comments