RoboCut carves objects from foam like a 3D printer

RoboCut carves 3D shapes from foam :  Hot-wire cutting is a subtraction fabrication technique used to carve foam and similar materials.

Students of ETH Zurich and University of Haifa show a new fabrication technique method that exploits a dual-arm robot setup to actively control the shape of a flexible, heated rod as it cuts through the material.

Conventional machines rely on straight wires and are limited to creating geometrical pieces. Combining two robotic arm  the process is now faster and more versatile, also require the software capability to calculate the curve and simulate the wire angles in the space with precision.

Results:

RobotCut results are compared to the original file and shown reported an absolute error of 2.00 mm on 80% of the surface. [PDF Source ]

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