Collaborative Research: HCC: Small: Programmable Visual Capabilities of Environments through 3D printed Light-transfer

尽管 3D 打印现在足够便宜，最终用户可以创建具有利用视觉反馈的传感和驱动功能的定制交互式设备，但大多数最终生成的物体要么是无源的，要么需要复杂、昂贵且高维护性的电子设备。此外，对于缺乏经验或没有领域专业知识的最终用户来说，定制功能的设计和制造以及在制造后的物理对象中对这些功能进行重新编程几乎是不可能的。该项目旨在通过增加用户对日常物品及其功能的感知来改变这种情况，以支持决策并提高相关任务的性能。 项目成果将通过提升日常物品和交互式设备 3D 打印的技术水平而产生广泛的影响，并增强智能环境中应用的视觉功能。 利用 3D 打印工艺和材料特性之间的相互作用，为视觉功能配备被动光传输特性，从而促进最终用户在设计传递数字信息的无电池智能物体时考虑视觉素养，将产生额外的影响。为了实现这些目标，该项目将围绕四项主要研究活动。首先，团队将进行整体材料实验，以表征光传输材料和微结构的设计空间，以了解其充电、释放和反射光能以感知、通信和显示信息的能力。随后将进行一系列假设检验实验，以确定改善人类感知对识别嵌入信息的影响。其次，该团队将与领域专家（即建筑和可视化领域的专家）以及工程/设计专业的学生合作，使用迭代参与式设计技术提炼先前活动中获得的知识，以确定设计支持工具中的机会、挑战和需求，并实现提供新交互的实际应用原型，并且驱动机制和 3D 打印参数将与重要的设计参数相关联。第三，将根据这些设计参数开发工具包，以促进最终用户在 3D 对象设计中的视觉素养，并在开发新的交互设备时传达关键信息。最后，将设计严格的技术评估和用户研究，以定量和定性地验证该方法。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Although 3D printing is now inexpensive enough for end-users to create custom interactive devices with sensing and actuation capabilities that leverage visual feedback, most resulting objects are either passive or require complicated, expensive, and high-maintenance electronics. Furthermore, the design and fabrication of custom functions, and the reprogramming of those functions in physical objects once fabricated, are nearly impossible for end-users with little experience or without domain expertise. This project aims to change that situation by increasing users’ perception of everyday objects and their functions to support decision making and improve performance in associated tasks. Project outcomes will have broad impact by advancing the state of the art in 3D printing of everyday objects and interactive devices with enhanced visual capabilities for applications in smart environments. Additional impact will derive from leveraging the interplay between the 3D printing process and material characteristics to equip visual capabilities with passive light-transfer properties and thereby foster end-user consideration of visual literacy when designing battery-less smart objects that convey digital information. To achieve these goals the project will center around four main research activities. First, the team will conduct holistic material experiments to characterize the design space of light-transfer materials and micro-structures, in order to understand their capabilities in charging, releasing, and reflecting light energy to sense, communicate, and display information. This will be followed by a series of hypothesis testing experiments to ascertain the effect of improved human perception on recognizing embedded information. Second, the team will work with domain experts (i.e., in architecture and visualization) as well as engineering/design students using iterative participatory design techniques to distil the knowledge obtained in the previous activity to identify opportunities, challenges, and needs in design support tools, and to implement practical application prototypes that afford the new interactions, and actuation mechanisms and 3D printing parameters will be associated with significant design parameters. Third, toolkits will be developed based on these design parameters to facilitate end-user visual literacy in 3D object design, and to convey key information when developing new interactive devices. Lastly, rigorous technical evaluation and user studies will be designed to validate the approach both quantitatively and qualitatively.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.