Pillow: Interactive Flattening of a 3D Model for Plush Toy Design

This is an interactive pattern design system for creating stuffed animals. In order to design an original stuffed animal, one needs to construct appropriate 2D pattern. However, it is difficult for ordinary people to design 2D pattern appropriately. To help people to design their own original stuffed animals, we are developing a system for pattern design.

This system takes a 3D surface model as input. The user draws free-form lines on the 3D model surface indicating the segmentation boundaries. When the user completes the segmentation, the system automatically flattens the pieces. The system also reconstructs the 3D geometry by virtually sewing the flattened pieces together and applying a simple physics simulation.

This method makes the construction of 2D patterns easier and enable the user to design his or her own original stuffed animals.

Publications

Yuki Mori, Takeo Igarashi. Pillow: Interactive Pattern Design for Stuffed Animals. DVD publication at SIGGRAPH 2006 Sketches & Applications, Boston, August, 2006. PDF