aeroMorph - Heat-sealing Inflatable Shape-change Materials for Interaction Design

This paper presents a design, simulation, and fabrication pipeline for making transforming inflatables with various materials. We introduce a bending mechanism that creates multiple, programmable shape-changing behaviors with inextensible materials, including paper, plastics and fabrics. We developed a software tool that generates this bending mechanism for a given geometry, simulates its transformation, and exports the compound geometry as digital fabrication files. We show a range of fabrication methods from manual sealing to heat pressing with custom stencils and a custom heat-sealing head that can be mounted on usual 3-axis CNC machines to precisely fabricate the designed transforming material. Finally, we present three applications to show how this technology could be used for designing interactive wearables, toys, and furniture.