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TrackItPipe: A Fabrication Pipeline To Incorporate Location and Rotation Tracking Into 3D Printed Objects

Dominik Schön, Thomas Kosch, Martin Schmitz, Florian Müller, Sebastian Günther, Johannes Kreutz, Max Mühlhäuser
UIST 2022
Adjunct Proceedings of the 35th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology
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TL;DR
What we did: We built TrackItPipe, a fabrication pipeline that allows users to semi-automatically integrate location and rotation tracking capabilities into 3D printed objects.
What we found: We found that TrackItPipe enables both CAD experts and novices to efficiently modify 3D models by adding necessary tracking support without requiring in-depth CAD knowledge.
Takeaway: TrackItPipe significantly simplifies the process of equipping 3D printed objects for Mixed Reality applications, fostering accessibility and rapid prototyping for users who wish to create interactive tangible designs.

Abstract

The increasing convergence of the digital and physical world creates a growing urgency to integrate 3D printed physical tangibles with virtual environments. A precise position and rotation tracking are essential to integrate such physical objects with a virtual environment. However, available 3D models commonly do not provide tracking support on their composition, which requires modifications by CAD experts. This poses a challenge for users with no prior CAD experience. This work presents TrackItPipe, a fabrication pipeline supporting users by semi-automatically adding tracking capabilities for 3D printable tangibles tailored to environmental requirements. TrackItPipe integrates modifications to the 3D model, produces the respective tangibles for 3D printing, and provides integration scripts for Mixed Reality. Using TrackItPipe, users can rapidly equip objects with tracking capabilities.