Cesar Torres at the ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST)
BCNM's Cesar Torres presented a series of demonstrations of HapticPrint, or 3D Printing using a haptic interface, at this year's ACM UIST in Charlotte, North Carolina which explored new boundaries in the uses and sensory experience of 3D printing by focusing on the tactile feel of models printed. HapticPrint's external tool maps textures and UI elements onto arbitrary shapes, and its internal tool modifies the internal geometry of models for novel compliance and weight characteristics. HapticPrint will hopefully give designers another dimension to utilize in designing 3D models, allowing prototypes and remotely manufactured objects to not only have a variety of shapes and sizes, but also a variety of densities, textures, and other tactile features. Torres also gave a dedication to Tim Campbell, another BCNM graduate student who passed away earlier this year.