HCII Researchers Fabricate Hair With Inexpensive 3-D Printer
News
3-D printers typically produce hard plastic objects, but HCII researchers have found a way to produce hair-like strands, fibers and bristles using a common, low-cost printer. The technique for producing 3-D-printed hair is similar to — and inspired by — the way that gossamer plastic strands are extruded when a person uses a hot glue gun.
"You just squirt a little bit of material and pull away," said HCII Ph.D. student Gierad Laput. "It's a very simple idea, really."
The plastic hair is produced strand by strand, so the process isn't fast — it takes about 20 to 25 minutes to generate hair on 10 square millimeters. But it requires no special hardware, just a set of parameters that can be added to a 3-D print job. The resulting hair can be cut, curled with hot air or braided. Dense, close-cropped strands can form a brush.
The 3-D printed hair will be displayed publicly for the first time today at the Engadget Live event in Liberty Warehouse in Brooklyn, NY. Laput and his colleagues, fellow HCII Ph.D. student Xiang "Anthony" Chen and HCII Assistant Professor Chris Harrison, will present their method on Wednesday Nov. 11, at UIST 2015, the ACM User Interface Software and Technology Symposium, in Charlotte, N.C.
Read the full story on the School of Computer Science website.