TrackItPipe: A Fabrication Pipeline To Incorporate Location and Rotation Tracking Into 3D Printed Objects

Abstract

The increasing convergence of the digital and physical world creates a growing urgency to integrate 3D printed physical tangibles with virtual environments. A precise position and rotation tracking are essential to integrate such physical objects with a virtual environment. However, available 3D models commonly do not provide tracking support on their composition, which requires modifications by CAD experts. This poses a challenge for users with no prior CAD experience. This work presents TrackItPipe, a fabrication pipeline supporting users by semi-automatically adding tracking capabilities for 3D printable tangibles tailored to environmental requirements. TrackItPipe integrates modifications to the 3D model, Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for third-party components of this work must be honored. For all other uses, contact the owner/author(s). UIST ’22 Adjunct, October 29-November 2, 2022, Bend, OR, USA © 2022 Copyright held by the owner/author(s). ACM ISBN 978-1-4503-9321-8/22/10. https://doi.org/10.1145/3526114.3558719 produces the respective tangibles for 3D printing, and provides integration scripts for Mixed Reality. Using TrackItPipe, users can rapidly equip objects with tracking capabilities.