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Clay 3D printing provides the benefits of digital fabrication automation and reconfigurability through a method that evokes manual clay coiling. Existing design technologies for clay 3D printing reflect the general 3D printing workflow in which solid forms are designed in CAD and then converted into a toolpath. In contrast, in hand-coiling, form is determined by the actions taken by the artist’s hands through space in response to the material. We theorized that an action-oriented approach for clay 3D printing could allow creators to design digital fabrication toolpaths that reflect clay material properties. We present CoilCAM, a domain-specific CAM programming system that supports the integrated generation of parametric forms and surface textures through mathematically defined toolpath operations. We developed CoilCAM in collaboration with ceramics professionals and evaluated CoilCAM’s relevance to manual ceramics by reinterpreting hand-made ceramic vessels. This process revealed the importance of iterative variation and embodied experience in action-oriented workflows.
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Slabforge: Design Software for Slab-Based Ceramics
Slab-based ceramics are constructed by rolling out flat sheets of clay, cutting out a pattern, and then folding the cut clay to build a three-dimensional design. Slabforge is an open-source web-based software application that supports slab-based ceramics. It enables users to design a range of simple 3D forms and then generate flat patterns and matching 3D-printable slump molds that support the construction of those forms. This paper discusses the development of the software in the context of our own ceramics practice and then describes the results of a study in which students in an introductory ceramics course used Slabforge to create tea sets. We use both of these experiences to motivate a critical reflection on the relationships between materials, craft, digital fabrication, and software, introducing three themes of friction that we encountered during the course of this project.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2026218
- PAR ID:
- 10389599
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Proceedings of the 2022 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '22)
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- Article 48, 1–12
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Conference Paper:
- https://doi.org/10.1145/3491102.3517663
