3D Printing Magnetophoretic Displays

We present a pipeline for printing interactive and always-on magnetophoretic displays using affordable Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) 3D printers. Using our pipeline, an end-user can convert the surface of a 3D shape into a matrix of voxels. The generated model can be sent to an FDM 3D printer equipped with an additional syringe-based injector. During the printing process, an oil and iron powder-based liquid mixture is injected into each voxel cell, allowing the appearance of the once-printed object to be editable with external magnetic sources. To achieve this, we made modifications to the 3D printer hardware and the firmware. We also developed a 3D editor to prepare printable models. We demonstrate our pipeline with a variety of examples, including a printed Stanford bunny with customizable appearances, a small espresso mug that can be used as a post-it note surface, a board game figurine with a computationally updated display, and a collection of flexible wearable accessories with editable visuals.

Created by:

Zeyu Yan, Hsuanling Lee, Liang He, Huaishu Peng

Publications:

ACM UIST 2023 | DOI PDF

ACM UIST 2023 DEMO | DOI PDF

News:

Hackster.io | 3D Printing

Talk:

Figures:

3D printing magnetophoretic display


3D printing magnetophoretic display


3D printing magnetophoretic display


3D printing magnetophoretic display


3D printing magnetophoretic display


3D printing magnetophoretic display


3D printing magnetophoretic display


3D printing magnetophoretic display