Intuitive approach for design of inner structure by mimicking magnetic effect.

Three-dimensional (3D) printers enable the realization of parts with complex shapes, particularly parts with an internal structure as well as an external shape. They are beginning to be used in real production as well as for prototyping. Because 3D printers allow shapes for parts that could not be imagined when conventional machining processes were the only fabrication methods, designers need to design porous parts with minimum weights that can maintain the required load-bearing capability without concerns about the realization of those parts. However, designers cannot design the internal structure of the parts using the current computer-aided design systems as freely as they can design the external shape. Therefore, in this paper, an intuitive design tool is proposed for users to interactively design an internal structure inside given external shape. To create a porous structure inside given closed volume, we aimed to generate a honeycomb-like structure comprising cells whose size and crowdedness can be intuitively manipulated by a designer. Thus, fine cells exist in certain regions, while coarse cells exist in the remaining regions according to the design. To realize this aim, the phenomenon in which more iron particles are attracted near a magnet and fewer are attracted further away from the magnet is imitated. More and finer honeycomb-like cells are attracted near a magnet located on the external surface of the closed volume. The designer can add magnets and move them on the external surface until the desired internal honeycomb-like structure is obtained.