3D printing on the move: UW device can map a room and print custom items in desired space

Printing a new gadget or art piece from a tabletop 3D printer is all fine and good. But what if the printer was mobile, and could move around a house taking measurements and creating objects in a desired space?

That’s the reality with a new University of Washington project called MobiPrint, which can automatically take measurements in a room and then print objects onto the floor. A prototype device, seen in action in the video below, is built onto a modified vacuum robot.

The possibilities for various printed objects range from artistic flourishes to accessibility features, such as tactile markers for blind and low-vision people or a ramp to cover an uneven flooring transition.

Before it starts printing, MobiPrint autonomously roams an indoor space and uses LiDAR to map it. A design tool converts the map into an interactive canvas. Users can upload a design or choose from MobiPrint’s library of objects.

The user then picks a location on the map to print the object, working with the design interface to scale and position the job. Finally, the robot moves to the location and prints the object directly onto the floor, using common 3D printing bioplastic.

Daniel Campos Zamora, a doctoral student in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering, said the goal is to push 3D printing further and further into the world, and lower the barriers for people to use it.

“How can we change the built environment and tailor spaces for peoples’ specific needs — for accessibility, for taste?” Zamora told UW News.

The UW team presented its work Oct. 15 at the ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology in Pittsburgh. Liang He, an assistant professor at Purdue University, who was a doctoral student in the Allen School while doing this research, is a co-author on the paper. The research was funded by the National Science Foundation.