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

尽管3D打印现在对终端用户来说已经足够便宜，可以创建具有传感和驱动功能的定制交互设备，以利用视觉反馈，但大多数生成的对象要么是被动的，要么需要复杂、昂贵和高维护的电子设备。此外，对于缺乏经验或没有领域专业知识的最终用户来说，自定义功能的设计和制造以及一旦制造后在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。项目成果将产生广泛的影响，推动日常物品和交互式设备的3D打印的最新水平，这些设备具有增强的视觉功能，用于智能环境中的应用。利用3D打印过程和材料特性之间的相互作用将产生额外的影响，使视觉能力具有被动光传递特性，从而在设计传达数字信息的无电池智能对象时促进最终用户对视觉素养的考虑。为了实现这些目标，该项目将围绕四项主要研究活动展开。首先，该团队将进行整体材料实验，表征透光材料和微结构的设计空间，以了解它们感知、交流和显示信息的充电、释放和反射光能的能力。随后将进行一系列假设检验实验，以确定人类感知的改善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来提炼在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，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，以从数量和质量上验证该方法。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势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.