From the University of Tokyo and presented at the 2020 ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST) by Maria Larsson, Hironori Yoshida, Nobuyuki Umetani, and Takeo Igarashi.
The system allows users to create customized joinery or select from a series of standard designs. The interactive system is meant to allow users to assemble, disassemble, and reuse as there are no nails or adhesives required for the joinery.
We present Tsugite — an interactive system for designing and fabricating wood joints for frame structures. To design and manually craft such joints is difficult and time consuming. Our system facilitates the creation of custom joints by a modeling interface combined with computer numerical control (CNC) fabrication. The design space is a 3D grid of voxels that enables efficient geometrical analysis and combinatorial search. The interface has two modes: manual editing and gallery. In the manual editing mode, the user edits a joint while receiving real-time graphical feedback and suggestions provided based on performance metrics including slidability, fabricability, and durability with regard to the direction of fiber. In the gallery mode, the user views and selects feasible joints that have been pre-calculated. When a joint design is finalized, it can be manufactured with a 3-axis CNC milling machine using a specialized path planning algorithm that ensures joint assemblability by corner rounding. This system was evaluated via a user study and by designing and fabricating joint samples and functional furniture.
Abstract (Larsson, Yoshida, Umetani, Igarashi, 2020)
Larsson, M., Yoshida, H., Umetani, N., & Igarashi, T. (2020, October). Tsugite: Interactive Design and Fabrication of Wood Joints. In UIST (pp. 317-327).
Learn more and find the paper here: http://ma-la.com/tsugite.html
See article by Designboom by Christina Petridou: https://www.designboom.com/technology/free-interactive-software-easily-complex-japanese-wooden-joints-furniture-04-13-2021/