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Thursday, February 18, 2021

Addressing Sheet Metal Design Waste

 Note the connection between design and fabrication. in a workflow.  Minimizing waste.   If you have a model of workflow, its easier to look at things like design and waste,  And AI methods can address patterns that minimize waste. 

MIT CSAIL taps AI to reduce sheet metal waste  By Kyle Wiggers @Kyle_L_Wiggers  in Venturebeat

Researchers at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) say they’ve created an AI-powered tool that provides feedback on how different parts of laser-cut designs should be placed onto metal sheets. By analyzing how much material is used in real time, they claim that their tool — called Fabricaide — allows users to better plan designs in the context of available materials.

Laser cutting is a core part of industries spanning from manufacturing to construction. However, the process isn’t always efficient. Cutting sheets of metal requires time and expertise, and even the most skillful users can produce leftovers that go to waste.

Fabricaide ostensibly solves this with a workflow that “significantly” shortens the feedback loop between design and fabrication. The tool keeps an archive of what a user has done, tracking how much of each material they have left and allowing the user to assign multiple materials to different parts of the design to be cut. This simplifies the process so that it’s less of a headache for multimaterial designs.

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