Generative 3D Modeling for Soft-Robotics
Short description
This internship proposal concerns students from second year of master degree, interested in a research internship. The main goal of the internship to develop a prototype of an interactive modeling tool to ease the design of soft-robots. The tool will rely on framework on generative implicit surfaces and distance field.
Key Words : distance field modeling, implicit modeling, mechanical simulation, robotics.
Context
The DEFROST team works on deformable robots. A deformable robot is composed of deformable structures, which behaves by deforming. Their design is often inspired by the mechanical properties of living organisms [Kim et al 2013]. These deformable robots have the advantage of being inexpensive to manufacture, robust and less dangerous in the context of interaction with humans. This new branch of robotics opens many prospects of applications.
In our research we developed a simulation platform SOFA [Faure et al 2012] that allows us to simulate and visualize, in real-time, the physical behavior of soft-material. Designing soft-robots is challenging as their shapes tend to be more and more complexes. The traditional modeling techniques based on surface meshes are limited in their ability to represent efficiently highly volumetric shapes.
This is why we are investigating new approaches to modeling as are generative implicit surfaces and distance field modeling.
Profile
Expected skills or interest in:
– Programming : C++ and python programing language
– 3D Programming API: opengl/vulkan, GLSL
– use of existing 3D modeling tools (blender, 3dsmax, catia, rhino,…)
– applied Mathematics or physical modeling: Linear Algebra, FEM, 3D modeling
– Teamwork
Schedule
– State on the art on modeling with distance field
– Prototype implementation in 2D
– Prototype implementation in 3D
References
[Jagnow et al. 2002] Barbara Cutler, Julie Dorsey, Leonard McMillan, Matthias Mueller, Robert Jagnow A Procedural Approach to Authoring Solid Models. Siggraph 2002 (http://people.csail.mit.edu/bmcutler/PROJECTS/SIGGRAPH02/)
[Procedural modeling with signed distance functions] (http://aka-san.halcy.de/distance_fields_prefinal.pdf)
[Faure et al 2012] François Faure, Christian Duriez, Hervé Delingette, Jérémie Allard, Benjamin Gilles, et al.. _SOFA: A Multi-Model Framework for Interactive Physical Simulation_. Soft Tissue Biomechanical Modeling for Computer Assisted Surgery 2012 (https://hal.inria.fr/hal-00681539)
[Kim et al 2013] Sangbae Kim, Cecilia Laschi and Barry Trimmer, _Soft robotics: a bioinspired evolution in robotics_. Trends in biotechnology, 2013
Contacts
– Damien Marchal : damien.marchal@univ-lille1.fr
– Jérémie Dequidt : jeremie.dequidt@univ-lille1.fr
– Thomas Morzadec: thomas.morzadec@math.u-psud.fr
