Disney Makes Connector Design Automatic

Disney Research developed the software to automatically designs 3d printable connectors. It looks amazing if it really works as described.

Where will this invention go? What will happen to it? It will probably end up in some corporations intellectual property portfolio.




From project description:

We present AutoConnect, an automatic method that creates customized, 3D-printable connectors attaching two physical objects together. Users simply position and orient virtual models of the two objects that they want to connect and indicate some auxiliary information such as weight and dimensions. Then, AutoConnect creates several alternative designs that users can choose from for 3D printing. The design of the connector is created by combining two holders, one for each object. We categorize the holders into two types. The first type holds standard objects such as pipes and planes. We utilize a database of parameterized mechanical holders and optimize the holder shape based on the grip strength and material consumption. The second type holds free-form objects. These are procedurally generated shell-gripper designs created based on geometric analysis of the object. We illustrate the use of our method by demonstrating many examples of connectors and practical use cases.

Project homepage:

http://www.disneyresearch.com/publication/autoconnect/