A Film Balloon Design System Integrated with Shell Element Simulation

Yohsuke FURUTA, Nobuyuki UMETANI, Jun MITANI, and Takeo IGARASHI

Abstract

CAD systems that have user-friendly interfaces for assisting ordinary people to design objects is becoming common. Most of these systems combine a sketch interface with physical simulation. In this paper, we propose a system for designing balloons made of non-stretchy material such as aluminum foil, plastic film and paper. We implemented the system by using a finite element method that is based on discrete Kirchhoff triangle (DKT) shell elements and a sketch interface that enables users to easily design the realistic shape of an inflated balloon. The 2D pattern for the balloon design is generated automatically by our system. We evaluated our system by a user study with six elementary school children and their parents. These users designed target objects and responded to a questionnaire.

Publication

Yohsuke FURUTA, Nobuyuki UMETANI, Jun MITANI, Takeo IGARASHI, and Yukio FUKUI,
A Film Balloon Design System Integrated with Shell Element Simulation,
the 31st annual conference of the European Association for Computer Graphics (EUROGRAPHICS 2010), shot paper, May 3-7, 2010.       YouTube

Exhibitions

• Miraikan Yokan-Kenkyusho 3 (Presentiment laboratory 3), May 1-5, 2010.
• Miraikan "Fun Club Week", March 13-22, 2010.