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Cilllia – 3D Printed Hair Structures for Surface Texture, Actuation and Sensing

Looking into the Nature, hair has numerous functions such as to provide warmth, adhesion, locomotion, sensing, a sense of touch, as well as it’s well known aesthetic qualities. This work presents a computational method of 3D printing hair structures. It allows us to design and generate hair geometry at 50 micrometer resolution and assign various functionalities to the hair. The ability to fabricate customized hair structures enables us to create super fine surface texture; mechanical adhesion property; new passive actuators and touch sensors on a 3D printed artifact. We also present several applications to show how the 3D-printed hair can be used for designing everyday interactive objects.

This work presents a method for 3D printing hair-like structures on both flat and curved surfaces. It allows a user to design and fabricate hair geometries that are smaller than
100 micron. We built a software platform to let users quickly define the hair angle, thickness, density, and height. The ability to fabricate customized hair-like structures not
only expands the library of 3D-printable shapes, but also enables us to design passive actuators and swipe sensors. Several applications also presented that show how the 3Dprinted hair can be used for designing everyday interactive objects.

Project link:
tangible.media.mit.edu/project/cilllia/

Read Full Research Paper: Cilllia – 3D Printed Micro-Pillar Structures for Surface Texture, Actuation and Sensing CHI 2016

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