PacCAM: Material Capture and Interactive 2D Packing for Efficient Material Usage on CNC Cutting Machines

Figure 1. PacCAM supports users in packing 2D parts by capturing materials in a CNCmachine (a) and using the captured materials (b) in a dedicated user interface based on 2D rigid body simulation and snapping (c), resulting in optimized utilization of material for efficient fabrication (d). The availability of low-cost digital fabrication devices en-ables new groups of users to participate in the design and fab-rication of things. However, software to assist in the transi-tion from design to actual fabrication is currently overlooked. In this paper, we introduce PacCAM, a system for packing 2D parts within a given source material for fabrication us-ing 2D cutting machines. Our solution combines computer vision to capture the source material shape with a user inter-face that incorporates 2D rigid body simulation and snapping. A user study demonstrated that participants could make lay-outs faster with our system compared with using traditional drafting tools. PacCAM caters to a variety of 2D fabrication applications and can contribute to the reduction of material waste