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2022 Other Restricted
Computational methods for improving manufacturing processes
Alderighi T
The last two decades have seen a rapid and wide growth of digital fabrication machinery and technologies. This led to a massive diffusion of such technologies both in the industrial setting and within the hobbyists' and makers' communities. While the applications to rapid prototyping and simple download-and-print use cases can be trivial, the design space offered by these numerically controlled technologies (i.e., 3D printing, CNC milling, laser cutting, etc.) is hard to exploit without the support of appropriate computational tools and algorithms. Within this thesis, we investigate how the potential of common rapid prototyping tools, combined with sound computational methods, can be used to provide novel and alternative fabrication methods and to enhance existing ones, making them available to non-expert users. In particular, the contributions presented in this thesis are four. The first is a novel technique for the automatic design of flexible molds to cast highly complex shapes. The algorithm is based on an innovative volumetric analysis of the mold volume that defines the layout of the internal cuts needed to open the mold. We show how the method can robustly generate valid molds for shapes with high topological and geometrical complexity for which previous existing methods could not provide any solution. The second contribution is a method for the automatic volumetric decomposition of objects in parts that can be cast using two-piece reusable rigid molds. Automating the design of this kind of molds can directly impact industrial applications, where the use of two-piece, reusable, rigid molds is a de-facto standard, for example, in plastic injection molding machinery. The third contribution is a pipeline for the fabrication of tangible media for the study of complex biological entities and their interactions. The method covers the whole pipeline from molecular surface preparation and editing to actual 3D model fab- rication. Moreover, we investigated the use of these tangible models as teaching aid in high school classrooms. Finally, the fourth contribution tackles another important problem related to the fabrication of parts using FDM 3D printing technologies. With this method, we present an automatic optimization algorithm for the decomposition of objects in parts that can be individually 3D printed and then assembled, with the goal of minimizing the visual impact of supports artifacts.

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2021 Journal article Open Access OPEN
Reliable feature-line driven quad-remeshing
Pietroni N, Nuvoli S., Alderighi T., Cignoni P., Tarini M.
We present a new algorithm for the semi-regular quadrangulation of an input surface, driven by its line features, such as sharp creases. We define a perfectly feature-aligned cross-field and a coarse layout of polygonal-shaped patches where we strictly ensure that all the feature-lines are represented as patch boundaries. To be able to consistently do so, we allow non-quadrilateral patches and T-junctions in the layout; the key is the ability to constrain the layout so that it still admits a globally consistent, T-junction-free, and pure-quad internal tessellation of its patches. This requires the insertion of additional irregular-vertices inside patches, but the regularity of the final-mesh is safeguarded by optimizing for both their number and for their reciprocal alignment. In total, our method guarantees the reproduction of feature-lines by construction, while still producing good quality, isometric, pure-quad, conforming meshes, making it an ideal candidate for CAD models. Moreover, the method is fully automatic, requiring no user intervention, and remarkably reliable, requiring little assumptions on the input mesh, as we demonstrate by batch processing the entire Thingi10K repository, with less than 0.5% of the attempted cases failing to produce a usable mesh.Source: ACM TRANSACTIONS ON GRAPHICS, vol. 40 (issue 4)
DOI: 10.1145/3450626.3459941
DOI: 10.1145/3476576.3476737
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See at: ACM Transactions on Graphics Open Access | dl.acm.org Open Access | ACM Transactions on Graphics Open Access | IRIS Cnr Open Access | CNR IRIS Open Access | Archivio Istituzionale della Ricerca dell'Università degli Studi di Milano Open Access | ACM Transactions on Graphics Restricted | doi.org Restricted | IRIS Cnr Restricted | ACM Transactions on Graphics Restricted | IRIS Cnr Restricted | CNR IRIS Restricted | CNR IRIS Restricted | yadda.icm.edu.pl Restricted


2019 Journal article Open Access OPEN
Volume-aware design of composite molds
Alderighi T, Malomo L, Giorgi D, Bickel B, Cignoni P Pietroni N
We propose a novel technique for the automatic design of molds to cast highly complex shapes. The technique generates composite, two-piece molds. Each mold piece is made up of a hard plastic shell and a flexible silicone part. Thanks to the thin, soft, and smartly shaped silicone part, which is kept in place by a hard plastic shell, we can cast objects of unprecedented complexity. An innovative algorithm based on a volumetric analysis defines the layout of the internal cuts in the silicone mold part. Our approach can robustly handle thin protruding features and intertwined topologies that have caused previous methods to fail. We compare our results with state of the art techniques, and we demonstrate the casting of shapes with extremely complex geometry.Source: ACM TRANSACTIONS ON GRAPHICS, vol. 38 (issue 4)
DOI: 10.1145/3306346.3322981
Project(s): EVOCATION via OpenAIRE, EMOTIVE via OpenAIRE, MATERIALIZABLE via OpenAIRE
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See at: dl.acm.org Open Access | CNR IRIS Open Access | ISTI Repository Open Access | ACM Transactions on Graphics Open Access | ACM Transactions on Graphics Restricted | CNR IRIS Restricted | CNR IRIS Restricted


2019 Other Restricted
A novel segmentation algorithm for support-free 3D printing
Filoscia I, Alderighi T, Cignoni P, Giorgi D, Malomo L
Digital fabrication, and 3D printing in particular, are growing important in a variety of fields, from industry to medicine, from cultural heritage to art, as often they are more rapid and cheaper than traditional manufacturing techniques. In this context, our aim is to make it easier for people to print high-quality objects at home, even of complex shape, by incorporating into software some of the professional skills that are needed to fully exploit the potential of 3D printing A major limitation of FDM printers is that the material must be supported when it is deposited: bridge-like structures or hanging features, which are not supported by other object parts, often need additional support structures. Indeed, most printers can produce overhangs, but only up to a certain tolerance angle, usually in-between 30 and 60 degrees. To solve this problem, additional columns of material are built to support the parts in overhang. These supports need to be removed in a postprocessing step, which may cause imperfections on the surface, or even break thin parts. A possible solution, which we adopt in this work, is to segment the object into smaller parts which can be printed individually with no or minimal need for supports. The main drawback is that the decomposition introduces cuts on the object surface, in correspondence of the boundaries between parts. Such cuts can be as visually disturbing as the imperfections due to the removal of supports, or even more. Therefore, given a 3D mesh representing the input object, our aim is to develop a segmentation technique to partition the mesh into a small number of simpler parts, each of which can be printed with no or minimal support, and such that the boundaries between the parts (i.e., where the cuts in the object surface will be) affect the appearance of the printed model as little as possible. We pose the segmentation problem as a multi-labeling problem solved via functional minimization. In our formulation, the data points will be mesh elements (either faces or clusters of faces), and the labels will be potential printing directions. We will define an objective function that takes into account the area of supported regions and support footings, as well as the visual impact of the cuts, in terms of both their length and location on the surface. We formulate this multi-labeling problem as an Integer Linear Program (ILP), which can be solved using standard optimization packages such as Gurobi.

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2019 Contribution to conference Open Access OPEN
Computational fabrication of macromolecules to enhance perception and understanding of biological mechanisms
Alderighi T., Giorgi D., Malomo L., Cignoni P., Zoppè M.
We propose a fabrication technique for the fast and cheap production of 3D replicas of proteins. We leverage silicone casting with rigid molds, to produce flexible models which can be safely extracted from the mold, and easily manipulated to simulate the biological interaction mechanisms between proteins. We believe that tangible models can be useful in education as well as in laboratory settings, and that they will ease the understanding of fundamental principles of macromolecular organization.DOI: 10.2312/stag.20191369
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See at: diglib.eg.org Open Access | CNR IRIS Open Access | ISTI Repository Open Access | CNR IRIS Restricted


2021 Journal article Open Access OPEN
Computational design, fabrication and evaluation of rubber protein models
Alderighi T., Giorgi D., Malomo L., Cignoni P., Zoppè M.
Tangible 3D molecular models conceptualize complex phenomena in a stimulating and engaging format. This is especially true for learning environments, where additive manufacturing is increasingly used to produce teaching aids for chemical education. However, the 3D models presented previously are limited in the type of molecules they can represent and the amount of information they carry. In addition, they have little role in representing complex biological entities such as proteins. We present the first complete workflow for the fabrication of soft models of complex proteins of any size. We leverage on molding technologies to generate accurate, soft models which incorporate both spatial and functional aspects of large molecules. Our method covers the whole pipeline from molecular surface preparation and editing to actual 3D model fabrication. The models fabricated with our strategy can be used as aids to illustrate biological functional behavior, such as assembly in quaternary structure and docking mechanisms, which are difficult to convey with traditional visualization methods. We applied the proposed framework to fabricate a set of 3D protein models, and we validated the appeal of our approach in a classroom setting.Source: COMPUTERS & GRAPHICS, vol. 98, pp. 177-187
DOI: 10.1016/j.cag.2021.05.010
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See at: CNR IRIS Open Access | ISTI Repository Open Access | www.sciencedirect.com Open Access | Computers & Graphics Restricted | Computers & Graphics Restricted | CNR IRIS Restricted | CNR IRIS Restricted


2021 Journal article Open Access OPEN
Volume decomposition for two-piece rigid casting
Alderighi T, Malomo L, Bickel B, Cignoni P, Pietroni N
We introduce a novel technique to automatically decompose an input object's volume into a set of parts that can be represented by two opposite height fields. Such decomposition enables the manufacturing of individual parts using two-piece reusable rigid molds. Our decomposition strategy relies on a new energy formulation that utilizes a pre-computed signal on the mesh volume representing the accessibility for a predefined set of extraction directions. Thanks to this novel formulation, our method allows for efficient optimization of a fabrication-aware partitioning of volumes in a completely automatic way. We demonstrate the efficacy of our approach by generating valid volume partitionings for a wide range of complex objects and physically reproducing several of them.Source: ACM TRANSACTIONS ON GRAPHICS, vol. 40 (issue 6)
DOI: 10.1145/3478513.3480555
Project(s): MATERIALIZABLE via OpenAIRE
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See at: dl.acm.org Open Access | CNR IRIS Open Access | ISTI Repository Open Access | CNR IRIS Restricted | CNR IRIS Restricted


2022 Journal article Open Access OPEN
State of the art in computational mould design
Alderighi T, Malomo L, Auzinger T, Bickel B, Cignoni P, Pietroni N
Moulding refers to a set of manufacturing techniques in which a mould, usually a cavity or a solid frame, is used to shape a liquid or pliable material into an object of the desired shape. The popularity of moulding comes from its effectiveness, scalability and versatility in terms of employed materials. Its relevance as a fabrication process is demonstrated by the extensive literature covering different aspects related to mould design, from material flow simulation to the automation of mould geometry design. In this state-of-the-art report, we provide an extensive review of the automatic methods for the design of moulds, focusing on contributions from a geometric perspective. We classify existing mould design methods based on their computational approach and the nature of their target moulding process. We summarize the relationships between computational approaches and moulding techniques, highlighting their strengths and limitations. Finally, we discuss potential future research directions.Source: COMPUTER GRAPHICS FORUM (PRINT), vol. 41 (issue 6), pp. 435-452
DOI: 10.1111/cgf.14581
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2020 Contribution to conference Metadata Only Access
Assembly of protein complexes using 3D models printed in soft silicone
Monica Zoppè, Daniela Giorgi, Luigi Malomo, Paolo Cignoni, Thomas Alderighi
Background. All life forms are supported by the work of proteins, very large macromolecules that exert their function through interactions and dynamic activity. Protein structures are determined through a growing number of techniques (based on X-ray, Cryo-EM and NMR), providing data on the general shape of proteins (and sometimes on their movements), deposited in the dataBank as atomic coordinates. Reading 3D coordinates is accomplished through one of few software that transform them into virtual images, using techniques of 3D computer graphics. Some authors have proposed the fabrication of protein models using direct printing or other techniques, but a general method for producing models that can be adopted in most settings was still lacking. Results. We propose a general pipeline for casting flexible protein models in soft silicone, based on the PDB files and on the design and printing of a two-pieces mold. The bipartite mold is automatically generated by an algorithm taking into account the geometrical and topological properties of the protein, so that the latter can easily be extracted once it is cast. We have evaluated our pipeline on We present our results multimeric Actin, tetrameric Hemoglobin and the Histone Octamer. All models can be fabricated as monomers (dimers in the case of Histones) and their assembly can be facilitated by the insertion of magnets at the protein-protein interfaces. Conclusions. The availability of physical models of proteins produced as soft, flexible objects makes it possible to handle the monomers and combine them to show their biological assemblies. The procedure for designing the mold, the printing, and the casting details are described; the STL files for the three selected proteins are freely available and deposited on the NIH database. The use of soft protein models will allow a better understanding of the way proteins work, facilitate teaching at high and superior grade courses and possibly inspire biologically based reasoning in any interested people, both scholars and lay persons.

See at: CNR IRIS Restricted | www.ascb.org Restricted


2018 Journal article Open Access OPEN
Metamolds: computational design of silicone molds
Alderighi T, Malomo L, Giorgi D, Pietroni N, Bickel B, Cignoni P
We propose a new method for fabricating digital objects through reusable silicone molds. Molds are generated by casting liquid silicone into custom 3D printed containers called metamolds. Metamolds automatically define the cuts that are needed to extract the cast object from the silicone mold. The shape of metamolds is designed through a novel segmentation technique, which takes into account both geometric and topological constraints involved in the process of mold casting. Our technique is simple, does not require changing the shape or topology of the input objects, and only requires off-the-shelf materials and technologies. We successfully tested our method on a set of challenging examples with complex shapes and rich geometric detailSource: ACM TRANSACTIONS ON GRAPHICS, vol. 37 (issue 4), pp. 136:1-136:13
DOI: 10.1145/3197517.3201381
Project(s): EMOTIVE via OpenAIRE
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See at: dl.acm.org Open Access | CNR IRIS Open Access | ISTI Repository Open Access | IST PubRep Open Access | ACM Transactions on Graphics Restricted | CNR IRIS Restricted | CNR IRIS Restricted


2021 Patent Restricted
Method for computationally designing re-usable flexible molds for the reproduction of an object
Alderighi T., Cignoni P., Malomo L., Giorgi D., Bickel B., Pietroni N.
METHOD FOR COMPUTATIONALLY DESIGNING RE-USABLE FLEXIBLE MOLDS FOR THE REPRODUCTION OF AN OBJECT

See at: CNR IRIS Restricted | CNR IRIS Restricted | register.epo.org Restricted


2020 Journal article Open Access OPEN
Optimizing object decomposition to reduce visual artifacts in 3D printing
Filoscia I, Alderighi T, Giorgi D, Malomo L, Callieri M, Cignoni P
We propose a method for the automatic segmentation of 3D objects into parts which can be individually 3D printed and then reassembled by preserving the visual quality of the final object. Our technique focuses on minimizing the surface affected by supports, decomposing the object into multiple parts whose printing orientation is automatically chosen. The segmentation reduces the visual impact on the fabricated model producing non-planar cuts that adapt to the object shape. This is performed by solving an optimization problem that balances the effects of supports and cuts, while trying to place both in occluded regions of the object surface. To assess the practical impact of the solution, we show a number of segmented, 3D printed and reassembled objects.Source: COMPUTER GRAPHICS FORUM (PRINT), vol. 39 (issue 2), pp. 423-434
DOI: 10.1111/cgf.13941
Project(s): EVOCATION via OpenAIRE
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See at: diglib.eg.org Open Access | CNR IRIS Open Access | ISTI Repository Open Access | Computer Graphics Forum Restricted | CNR IRIS Restricted


2022 Journal article Open Access OPEN
Design and construction of a bending-active plywood structure: the Flexmaps Pavilion
Laccone F, Malomo L, Callieri M, Alderighi T, Muntoni A, Ponchio F, Pietroni N, Cignoni P
Mesostructured patterns are a modern and efficient concept based on designing the geometry of structural material at the meso-scale to achieve desired mechanical performances. In the context of bending-active structures, such a concept can be used to control the flexibility of the panels forming a surface without changing the constituting material. These panels undergo a formation process of deformation by bending, and application of internal restraints. This paper describes a new constructional system, FlexMaps, that has initiated the adoption of bending-active mesostructures at the architectural scale. Here, these modules are in the form of four-arms spirals made of CNC-milled plywood and are designed to reach the desired target shape once assembled. All phases from the conceptual design to the fabrication are seamlessly linked within an automated workflow. To illustrate the potential of the system, the paper discusses the results of a demonstrator project entitled FlexMaps Pavilion (3.90x3.96x3.25 meters) that has been exhibited at the IASS Symposium in 2019 and more recently at the 2021 17th International Architecture Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia. The structural response is investigated through a detailed structural analysis, and the long-term behavior is assessed through a photogrammetric survey.Source: JOURNAL OF THE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR SHELL AND SPATIAL STRUCTURES, vol. 63 (issue 2), pp. 98-114
DOI: 10.20898/j.iass.2022.007
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