Computational Aspects of Fabrication (Dagstuhl Seminar 14361)

As manufacturing goes digital, the current understanding of industrial production will change fundamentally. The digital age in manufacturing is coupled with new output devices that allow rapid customization and rapid manufacturing, revolutionizing the way we design, develop, distribute, fabricate, and consume products. We need to find computational models that support this new way of production thinking and lead its technological understanding. This opens challenges for many areas of science research, such as material science, chemistry, and engineering, but also and perhaps foremost computer sciences. The currently available digital content creation pipelines, algorithms, and tools cannot fully explore new manufacturing capabilities. To meet these demands, we need a deep understanding of computer graphics fundamentals: Shape, appearance of shape and materials, and physically-based simulation and animation. When designing an object, there is an inherent interplay among all these fundamental aspects. The purpose of this seminar is to bring together leading experts from academia and industry in the area of computer graphics, geometry processing, and digital fabrication. The goal is to address fundamental questions and issues related to computational aspects of fabrication and jump-start collaborations that will pioneer new approaches in this area.