Computational Handicraft

Abstract

The design of original handicrafts requires appropriate construction plans, since the creation of such plans is very difficult for children, they are typically restricted to the use of off-the-shelf projects. To provide alternatives, we created interactive systems that allow nonprofessional users to design their own original handicrafts, such as plush toys, knitted animals, beadwork, and stencils. For plush toys, the “Plushie” interactive design system uses a sketching interface for three-dimensional (3D) modeling and provides various editing operations tailored for plush toy creation. Internally, the system constructs a two-dimensional (2D) cloth pattern that, in turn, is used to produce a simulation that matches the user’s input strokes. For knitted animal toys, we created the “Knitty” interactive design system, which also provides a production-assistant interface for novices, while the “Beady” system interactively assists users in the design and construction of customized 3D beadwork. The latter system provides a mesh modeling user interface specialized for beadwork models by combining gestural operations and physical simulations. It also provides a visual 3D step-by-step guide to facilitate the manual beadwork construction process. Finally, the “Holly” system lets users quickly design stencils from scratch by interactively drawing free-form strokes on a digital canvas, which the system then uses to generate the stencils automatically. The support systems mentioned above were successfully demonstrated in special workshops and user studies, the results of which show that even children can use them effectively to design original handicrafts.