Designing a new toy to fit other toy pieces
- A shape-matching toy design based on existing building-blocks -"

Shape-matching toys are popular items for infants, and consist of boxes with many holes in different shapes along with corresponding blocks of the same shapes. To play with the toy, an infant finds and inserts a block matching the shape of a particular hole. It is very difficult to design such toys because the toy body Onew must closely fit the shape of the existing blocks Oexisting. The designer usually takes the measurements of the blocks Oexisting and draws corresponding feature sizes, then makes a construction diagram for the toy body Onew. We propose a computer-based method for novices to enable the design of a new toy to fit other toy pieces. The method involves making a construction diagram for Onew on a photograph of the blocks Oexisting using a computer. The user first takes a photograph of the blocks on a checkerboard, then designs the form of the new toy Onew on the photograph using a sketching interface. From the photograph on the checkerboard, the system automatically fits the designed toy Onew to the actual measurements and exports the results in vector form. The system supports SVG and DXF formats. Finally, the user cuts the shapes from a wooden board using a cutting plotter or laser printer.

Demonstrations

Publications

Yuki Igarashi and Hiromasa Suzuki. "Designing a new toy to fit other toy pieces - A shape-matching toy design based on existing building-blocks -" . ACM SIGGRAPH 2010 Poster, L.A., July 2010. (to appear) PDF

Yuki Igarashi and Hiromasa Suzuki. "Designing a new toy to fit other toy pieces - A shape-matching toy design based on existing building-blocks -" . The 14th International Conference on Geometry and Graphics, Kyoto Japan, August 5-9, 2010.(to appear) PDF(abstract), PDF(full)