Disney Enterprises, Inc.

Eth Zurich (eidgenoessische Technische Hochschule Zurich)

Fabrizio Pece

Bernd Bickel

Wojciech Matusik

Bernhard Thomaszewski

Moritz Niklaus Bächer

Marc Alexa

Jan Kautz

Otmar Hilliges

Benjamin Hepp

Paul Gregory Kry

Embodiments herein describe deformable controllers that rely on piezoelectric material embedded in the controllers to detect when the input device is being manipulated into a particular deformation or gesture. The computing system may perform different actions depending on which deformation is detected. The embodiments herein describe design techniques for optimizing the placement of the piezoelectric material in the controller to improve the accuracy of a mapping function that maps sensor responses of the material to different controller deformations. In one embodiment, the user specifies the different deformations of the controller she wishes to be recognized by the computing system (e.g., raising a leg, twisting a torso, squeezing a hand, etc.). The design optimizer uses the locations of the desired deformations to move the location of the piezoelectric material such that the sensor response of the material can be uniquely mapped to these locations.

Designing customized deformable input devices using simulated piezoelectric sensor responses

A three-dimensional relief can be produced from one or more two-dimensional digital (2D) images. A height field is computed from the 2D images and illumination direction information. The height field comprises a multiplicity of geometric surface elements arrayed in a 2D field corresponding to the pixels of the one or more 2D images. Each geometric surface element corresponds to a pixel of each of the digital images and has at least one height parameter representing a displacement from a surface floor. Once the height field is computed, optimizations can be made to the height field including adding and adjusting albedo and glossy surface finishing. The height field can be used to fabricate relief elements in a material, such that each relief element corresponds in shape, position in the height field, and height above the surface floor, to one of the geometric surface elements in the height field.

Physical reproduction of reflectance fields

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Zurich, Switzerland

Fabrizio Pece