Abstract. We introduce PrintPut, a method for 3D printing that embeds interactivity directly into printed objects. PrintPut uses conductive filament to offer an assortment of sensors that an industrial designer can easily incorporate into their 3D designs, including buttons, pressure sensors, sliders, touchpads, and flex sensors. PrintPut combines physical and interactive sketching into the same process: seamlessly integrating sensors onto the surfaces of 3D objects, without the need for external sensor hardware.
In early design, instrumenting an object with touch sensing capability, especially one with complex surface geometry, can be problematic. In this paper, we show how resistive graph patterns-or resigraphs-can be used to quickly fabricate multi-touch sensors tailored to an object's shape. In very early ideation, resigraphs can be drawn using conductive ink. In later refinements they can be silk-screened or laser cut from off-the-shelf materials. A resigraph uses a commonly available microprocessor (e.g. Arduino), requires only three wires, and enables touch input on nonplanar and non-developable surfaces.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.