3D printer Thinker Thing will print your thoughts
Imagine that you can print objects just by thinking about them. Recently, this is no longer a dream, but a very real technology - at least for clients of the Chilean startup Thinker Thing. The potential of their development is enormous, only the technology is damp: you can’t just start a 3D printer, close your eyes, imagine a flying pasta monster, a marshmallow seaman or a pink dinor (emphasize), brew tea and expect a result - to achieve the goal you will have to prestress the gray matter.
As you know, engineers and designers have been using 3D printers for more than two decades. More recently, the cost of these devices has fallen so much that they are available to ordinary people. The possibilities seem endless: the creation of food, living tissue, weapons and even batteries. The revolution took place! Cheers, comrades! That's just the majority of vendors so far concentrate forces on finalizing only the hardware component of these devices, then much less attention is paid to the development of software for 3D printers. But the Chileans decided to go further and created a mechanism that allows users to reveal their inner creative potential. With its help, people who are lazy / can not engage in modeling objects for 3D printing using the appropriate software and do not want to download ready-made models will be able to do what all the rest can only dream of, getting in the process a pure undiluted fan.
This is not a bird or a plane. The orange piece of plastic that can fit in your palm looks like a toy tyrannosaurus limb. It may not look very impressive, but the fact remains: this is the first object printed on a 3D printer with the power of thought.
')
The system is based on the Emotional Evolutionary Design (EED) software package, which allows a 3D printer to interpret the thoughts of its users, and a $ 300 headset-electroencephalograph, which monitors brain cell activity using fourteen sensors in contact with the scalp. As you know, the transitions of the brain from one state to another (excitement, boredom, joy, etc.) are characterized by certain patterns of activity of the gray matter. A bunch of EED and Emotiv EPOC successfully reads and interprets these patterns. This hardware-software complex is able to literally create order from chaos.
3D modeling process with Emotional Evolutionary Design
A bunch of EED and Emotiv EPOC in action
The user is shown random forms, and the system analyzes its reaction in real time. Soft can distinguish from the total mass of objects that have received a positive emotional reaction. The forms that the user likes will increase in size on the screen, while the rest will shrink. The largest forms can be combined with each other to create model components. The output will be a unique 3D model, completely ready for printing. Developers are focusing on the fact that even a three / four-year-old child can cope with such a system, who has not even learned how to properly hold a pencil in his hands - not to mention working with AutoCAD (here mummies are jubilant).
The concept of designing models through the analysis of emotional reactions is based on the fact that most people more effectively reject individual ideas from the general mass than create new ideas from scratch, especially if they are not properly trained. This is well understood by engineers from Cornell University (USA), who also create similar technology.
“Currently, one of the weaknesses of 3D printing is the content creation mechanism,” says Professor Hod Lipson, “We have iPods without music. We have machines that can create almost anything, but we don’t yet we can unleash their potential. "
The evolutionary design of 3D objects on the EndlessForms website
Lipson's students created the EndlessForms website, which visitors can use a rather convenient step-by-step mechanism for designing new 3D models. Initially, the user is shown 15 three-dimensional forms. Having chosen the ones he likes, he can combine them, after which 15 new forms will appear, combining the features of the chosen options.
To speed up the process, the Americans decided to use the same idea as the Chileans from the Thinker Thing team. Last year, they used the Emotiv EPOC headset to create 3D models, but they ran into a problem: at some point, the device ceased to function normally, as the subjects got tired and the signal became inaccurate. Multiple calibration did not solve the problem. Researchers note that this problem is characteristic of virtually all low-cost EEGs. Skull extinguishes weak
electrical impulses from the neurons of the brain, while the electrical signals from nearby facial muscles may be stronger. More accurate magnetic resonance imagers can be used, but this approach makes off-the-shelf 3D printing devices too expensive and
impractical.
Emotiv EPOC Headset
Therefore, Lipson associates decided to turn the user's eyes into the input interface. The tracking system they have created can determine
forms that the user pays the most attention. The hitch is that without EEG-headset it is impossible to determine the user's reaction to the figure. Therefore, both devices must be used in tandem. Hopefully, in the future, the refined brain scanning and eye tracking systems will replace the good old mouse when creating 3D models.
Especially inquiring minds I suggest to get acquainted with the promotional video of this project. Meat starts from the second minute. Have a nice watching!
PS In the meantime, developers are struggling to create an innovative interface for creating 3D models, advanced models of leading brand 3D printers can be viewed and ordered in detail HERE.
As you know, engineers and designers have been using 3D printers for more than two decades. More recently, the cost of these devices has fallen so much that they are available to ordinary people. The possibilities seem endless: the creation of food, living tissue, weapons and even batteries. The revolution took place! Cheers, comrades! That's just the majority of vendors so far concentrate forces on finalizing only the hardware component of these devices, then much less attention is paid to the development of software for 3D printers. But the Chileans decided to go further and created a mechanism that allows users to reveal their inner creative potential. With its help, people who are lazy / can not engage in modeling objects for 3D printing using the appropriate software and do not want to download ready-made models will be able to do what all the rest can only dream of, getting in the process a pure undiluted fan.
This is not a bird or a plane. The orange piece of plastic that can fit in your palm looks like a toy tyrannosaurus limb. It may not look very impressive, but the fact remains: this is the first object printed on a 3D printer with the power of thought.
')
So how does the shaitan box Thinker Thing work?
The system is based on the Emotional Evolutionary Design (EED) software package, which allows a 3D printer to interpret the thoughts of its users, and a $ 300 headset-electroencephalograph, which monitors brain cell activity using fourteen sensors in contact with the scalp. As you know, the transitions of the brain from one state to another (excitement, boredom, joy, etc.) are characterized by certain patterns of activity of the gray matter. A bunch of EED and Emotiv EPOC successfully reads and interprets these patterns. This hardware-software complex is able to literally create order from chaos.
3D modeling process with Emotional Evolutionary Design
A bunch of EED and Emotiv EPOC in action
The user is shown random forms, and the system analyzes its reaction in real time. Soft can distinguish from the total mass of objects that have received a positive emotional reaction. The forms that the user likes will increase in size on the screen, while the rest will shrink. The largest forms can be combined with each other to create model components. The output will be a unique 3D model, completely ready for printing. Developers are focusing on the fact that even a three / four-year-old child can cope with such a system, who has not even learned how to properly hold a pencil in his hands - not to mention working with AutoCAD (here mummies are jubilant).
Competitors
The concept of designing models through the analysis of emotional reactions is based on the fact that most people more effectively reject individual ideas from the general mass than create new ideas from scratch, especially if they are not properly trained. This is well understood by engineers from Cornell University (USA), who also create similar technology.
“Currently, one of the weaknesses of 3D printing is the content creation mechanism,” says Professor Hod Lipson, “We have iPods without music. We have machines that can create almost anything, but we don’t yet we can unleash their potential. "
The evolutionary design of 3D objects on the EndlessForms website
Lipson's students created the EndlessForms website, which visitors can use a rather convenient step-by-step mechanism for designing new 3D models. Initially, the user is shown 15 three-dimensional forms. Having chosen the ones he likes, he can combine them, after which 15 new forms will appear, combining the features of the chosen options.
To speed up the process, the Americans decided to use the same idea as the Chileans from the Thinker Thing team. Last year, they used the Emotiv EPOC headset to create 3D models, but they ran into a problem: at some point, the device ceased to function normally, as the subjects got tired and the signal became inaccurate. Multiple calibration did not solve the problem. Researchers note that this problem is characteristic of virtually all low-cost EEGs. Skull extinguishes weak
electrical impulses from the neurons of the brain, while the electrical signals from nearby facial muscles may be stronger. More accurate magnetic resonance imagers can be used, but this approach makes off-the-shelf 3D printing devices too expensive and
impractical.
Emotiv EPOC Headset
Therefore, Lipson associates decided to turn the user's eyes into the input interface. The tracking system they have created can determine
forms that the user pays the most attention. The hitch is that without EEG-headset it is impossible to determine the user's reaction to the figure. Therefore, both devices must be used in tandem. Hopefully, in the future, the refined brain scanning and eye tracking systems will replace the good old mouse when creating 3D models.
Especially inquiring minds I suggest to get acquainted with the promotional video of this project. Meat starts from the second minute. Have a nice watching!
PS In the meantime, developers are struggling to create an innovative interface for creating 3D models, advanced models of leading brand 3D printers can be viewed and ordered in detail HERE.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/206250/
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