Towards 3-D Shape Restructuring for Rapid Prototyping of Joining Interface System

Ready-made building components and joining systems are generally unfit for existing building structures with irregular shapes. Therefore, unplanned and immediate manual work is dominantly practiced as measuring and manufacturing of the customized joining system is not supported. In this respect, by obtaining 3-D shapes of the existing building components and using them for the customization of the joining parts, construction productivity can be improved while minimizing the construction errors. The aim of this research is to develop a joining interface production system that can be adaptively reconfigured for general renovation of building facades. The proposed system can precisely capture the built geometry of the existing infrastructure and in order to manufacture tailored joint components. This approach can not only enhance the assembly process and quality in renovation process, but also minimize the expenditure by preventing additional manual labor. As a pilot test before introducing 3-D Laser scanning for precise measurement, depth images using Kinect infrared (IR) sensors are utilized in order to register the 3-D shape of irregular building components. This geometry is modified and updated by considering the geometry of the joints, which becomes the interface 3-D model between a prefabricated joint part and an irregular pre-existing building component. For the customized fabrication of the interface 3-D model, a mock-up prototyping is tested using a 3-D printer. A 3-D rapid prototyping system using 3-D depth reconstruction is proposed and developed, for the manufacturing of 3-D joint interface components. Interoperability with BIM tools needs to be considered to integrate the design and production steps. At last, this research contributes towards robotic-oriented lean construction methodologies [1], by eliminating drawbacks by providing a CAD/CAM framework that incorporates modularity, design for assembly (DFA) and design for variety (DFV) principles.