SBIR Phase I: Computer Aided Design and Simulation Software for Origami

这个小企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目的更广泛的影响是使折纸设计原则在工业中得到广泛采用，以提高制造效率和促进技术创新。 折纸启发的工程几乎在所有科学，技术，工程和数学（STEM）领域都有应用，但现有的计算机辅助设计（CAD）工具在建模折叠几何形状的能力方面非常有限。这个第一阶段项目和随后的商业化努力将通过创建功能强大且用户友好的折叠建模软件来填补市场空白，目标客户涵盖广泛的行业：产品设计，建筑，包装，造纸，教育，制造和材料工程。该项目期间进行的研究和开发所产生的学术出版物将促进折叠数学的基础知识。此外，这项工作旨在通过与K-12 STEM教育工作者的持续合作来创造积极的教育影响，以创建几何，数字设计和通过papercraft制造的引人入胜的课程。SBIR第一阶段项目将创建一个智能软件系统，通过基于基础研究的强大折纸编辑技术来促进折叠几何的设计和模拟。第一阶段的研究和开发建立在团队先前关于折纸设计算法和高效折纸模拟方法的工作基础上，以建立一个新颖的设计框架，支持新手用户直观地编辑折叠几何形状。该项目的一个特别重点是弯曲折痕折纸的未开发领域，这为高性能材料工程和表现力设计提供了新的机会。 第一阶段的研究将调查关键的开放式研究问题支撑的CAD系统，这项工作将建立有效的方法和数学界限的关键折纸设计算法的软件系统实现。第一阶段项目的主要技术障碍包括：构建一个新的约束管理系统，以支持折纸设计的交互式编辑，建立新的计算设计算法的弯曲折痕折纸，并开发核心数据结构和几何处理方法，用于CAD系统。在第一阶段，该团队将与客户和战略合作伙伴合作，确定折叠在关键垂直市场的具体用例，开发最小可行产品（MVP）软件应用程序，并评估其商业潜力方面的技术进步。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is to enable widespread adoption of origami design principles in industry to create manufacturing efficiencies and promote technological innovation. Origami-inspired engineering has applications across virtually all Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields, yet existing computer-aided design (CAD) tools are extremely limited in their ability to model folded geometries. This Phase I project and subsequent commercialization effort will fill a gap in the market by creating powerful and user-friendly software to model folding, with target customers spanning a broad range of industries: product design, architecture, packaging, papercraft, education, manufacturing, and materials engineering. Academic publications resulting from the research and development conducted during this project will advance fundamental knowledge of the mathematics of folding. Furthermore, this work seeks to create positive educational impacts through ongoing collaborations with K-12 STEM educators to create engaging curricula in geometry, digital design, and manufacturing through papercraft.This SBIR Phase I project will create an intelligent software system that facilitates the design and simulation of folded geometries via powerful origami editing techniques grounded in fundamental research. The Phase I research and development builds on the team’s prior work on origami design algorithms and efficient origami simulation methods to establish a novel design framework that supports intuitive editing of folded geometry by novice users. A particular focus of the project is the under-explored domain of curved crease origami, which promises new opportunities for high-performance materials engineering and expressive design. Phase I research studies will investigate key open research problems underpinning the CAD system; this work will establish efficient methods and mathematical bounds for critical origami design algorithms to be implemented by the software system. Primary technical hurdles of the Phase I project include: architecting a novel constraint management system to support interactive editing of origami designs, establishing novel computational design algorithms for curved crease origami, and developing core data structures and geometry processing methods to be used by the CAD system. Throughout Phase I, the team will work with customers and strategic partners to identify specific use cases of folding in key vertical markets, develop a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) software application, and evaluate technical progress in terms of its commercial potential.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.