CHS: Small: Collaborative Research:Dynamic Computer-Aided Machining: Supporting Interactive Workflows for Digital Fabrication and Manufacturing

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This project will develop digital fabrication tools that align with the workflows of low-volume manufacturing. It will study how early-adopter manufacturing firms are developing production workflows that harness digital fabrication. Informed by this data, programming representations and software tools will be developed that facilitate the creation of specific digital fabrication workflows. These software tools will be developed from an end-user perspective, providing programming abstractions that allow for high-level creative input that is compatible with existing digital fabrication equipment. Digital fabrication technologies such as 3D printing enable a shift from mass-manufacture to low-volume production of niche, specialized, and customized products. Small manufacturing firms rely on digital fabrication for the design and production of new products; using an iterative process they develop product-specific workflows that apply the primary stages of digital fabrication (digital modeling, machine programming, and machine operation) in different forms for ideation, prototyping, revision, and production. This research will broaden and diversify participation in digital fabrication and end-user programming by providing technologies that are relevant to traditional art and craft domains, as well as facilitating local manufacture of a diversity of goods designed to appeal to niche and diverse customers. This research will establish domain-specific programming representations and software tools for describing and executing dynamic digital fabrication workflows. At present, there is no formal description language that can be used to describe digital fabrication operations at a global level. This research will contribute a digital fabrication representation and programming environment that enables the description of end-to-end digital fabrication workflows. The representation will provide generic datatypes for machine state, user input, and sensor feedback that can be used interchangeably to create geometry and toolpaths, or drive machine operation. It will also support the expression of complex workflow architecture through conditionals, loops, and abstractions for modularization. The programming environment will build on this representation to enable practitioners to define and execute product-specific workflows through a unified interface for modeling, machine programming, and machine operation. This work will substantially advance human-computer interaction research efforts in interactive fabrication and end-user programming by providing generalizable programming tools for specifying dynamic machine behavior.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.