Eurographics Digital Library
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Recent Submissions
Deployable, Modular, and Reconfigurable: Computational Design of Umbrella Meshes
(EPFL, 2025-07-24) Kusupati, Uday
Deployable structures that transform from a planar assembly-friendly compact state to an expansive freeform surface state have diverse applications in robotics, medical devices, temporary installations, and architecture. Umbrella Meshes are a new class of volumetric deployable structures with extensive shape expression capabilities compared to existing plane-to-surface deployables. They are modular, made of Umbrella cells consisting of identical rigid plates and rotational joints connected by elastic beams of varying heights. Deployment is actuated by pushing the cells orthogonal to the plane, rotating the elastic beams from vertical to horizontal configurations, thus redistributing material from out of the plane into it. In contrast to rigid scissor mechanisms, the beams deform elastically, making the deployed equilibrium bending-active. Assembled in a stress-free planar configuration, an Umbrella Mesh can be programmed to deploy to a desired target shape by virtue of the optimized heights of the constituent cells. The rich design space facilitates programming a large range of target shapes, controlling the structural stiffness, and encoding extrinsic curvature.
This thesis contributes a comprehensive computational framework for the design and optimization of Umbrella Meshes. To facilitate design exploration of the deployed structure, we develop a physics-based simulation modeling the deployment process under actuation forces. We abstract the deployment transformation of an umbrella mesh using conformal geometry, providing intuitive design initializations for a specific target surface. Our inverse design algorithm leverages the simulation pipeline and numerical optimization to iteratively refine a design to approximate a target surface while minimizing the elastic energy and actuation forces involved. We build optimized physical prototypes through digital fabrication and validate our computational pipeline.
The inverse design framework exemplifies a design-driven approach to fabricating optimized physical structures. The latter half of this thesis focuses on fabrication-driven design. We develop a computational framework to rationalize bending-active structures into a sparse kit of parts, allowing cost-effective fabrication. Our method can either find an optimal kit of parts for multiple input designs or rationalize existing designs to use a pre-fabricated kit of parts. To tackle the non-trivial coupling of components in bending-active systems, we propose a relaxed continuous formulation of the combinatorial problem of grouping components to a sparse part set, allowing us to incorporate physics-based simulation that tracks multiple bending-active equilibria. We demonstrate our approach on Umbrella Meshes, C-shells, and orthogonal gridshells.
The thesis culminates with Reconfigurable Umbrella Meshes (RUMs) consisting of identical reconfigurable cells. Each reconfigurable cell can assume the form of a continuous range of parts, thus combining the benefits of pre-fabrication and precisely inverse-designed heights. Assembled from these identical mass-producible cells, the same RUM can deploy into several shapes over multiple deployment cycles. Our inverse design enables precise reconfiguration of the compact state and opens up multiple research avenues for high-fidelity shape morphing control with applications in soft robotics and sustainable architecture.
Namako 2: Unity Plugin for Stress Visualization, Deformation Prediction and Haptic Rendering of Soft Objects
(The Eurographics Association, 2025) Sase, Kazuya; Chen, Xiaoshuai; Tsujita, Teppei; Konno, Atsushi; Garro, Valeria; Young, Gareth; Elwardy, Majed
Developing real-time deformable-body simulation with physical accuracy inside game engines remains challenging due to limited official support and integration complexity. To address this, we present Namako 2, an extended version of our previous Unity plugin that enables real-time finite element simulation with automatic mesh generation, 3D model embedding, robust contact handling, and built-in stress visualization. We demonstrate several example scenes of surgical simulation using Namako 2. The plugin is publicly available at https://github.com/sasekazu/Namako
Realistic Impact Method with Force Feedback in VR Space Using a Lower Limb Exoskeleton Device
(The Eurographics Association, 2025) Kanta, Ogura; Shimizu, T.; Sugino, T.; Sawahashi, R.; Nishihama, R.; Nakamura, T.; Garro, Valeria; Young, Gareth; Elwardy, Majed
In recent years, the widespread adoption of Head-Mounted Displays (HMDs) has made Virtual Reality (VR) experiences more accessible, leading to the development of force-feedback devices to enhance immersion. Force-feedback devices enhance VR immersion but presenting large, realistic forces, such as for a soccer kick, is challenging due to safety constraints. Therefore, designing the presented reaction force is crucial to enhance realism and mitigate perceptual discrepancies. In this study, we used a lower limb-mounted force-feedback device to investigate how different torque waveforms presented during a ball kick affect user perception.
Exploring Ownership of an Avatar's Cat Ears through Visual, Auditory, and Haptic Multimodal Feedback
(The Eurographics Association, 2025) Yamamura, Hiroo; Kondo, Ryota; Sakurada, Kuniharu; Normand, Jean-Marie; Sugimoto, Maki; Garro, Valeria; Young, Gareth; Elwardy, Majed
Extensions of body parts that humans are not innately endowed with, such as supernumerary limbs, have attracted attention. Since these body parts resemble existing ones, their movements and sensations can be inferred from the innately existing body parts. However, the sense of ownership for imaginary body parts, such as cat ears, which humans have never possessed, has not been sufficiently investigated. This paper proposes an experiment to examine the changing sense of ownership of cat ears, a body part that humans are not innately endowed with, through multimodal feedback that integrates visual, auditory, and haptic stimuli. Using an avatar with cat ears attached to the top of the head, we suggest presenting visual stimuli of the avatar's cat ears along with spatially congruent auditory and haptic feedback to enhance the sense of ownership over imaginary cat ears.
Spatial Body Augmentation for Destructive Interaction in Giant Avatar Embodiment using a Wearable Force Feedback Device
(The Eurographics Association, 2025) Sawahashi, Ryunosuke; Nishihama, R.; Nakamura, T.; Garro, Valeria; Young, Gareth; Elwardy, Majed
This study examined the effects of force presentation on physicality in a VR environment using a giant avatar. Focusing on a sense of body ownership (SoB) and a sense of agency (SoA), we designed an interaction in which the user's upper limb movements are synchronized with the arm movements of a giant avatar to destroy a building using a wearable force-sensing device. The device combines a magneto-viscous fluid brake and a vibration motor, and is capable of presenting inertial forces and a sense of collision in response to joint acceleration. Experimental results showed that the device improved the sense of weight and the sense of destruction while maintaining the sense of body ownership and the sense of agency.