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Innovation Design Engineering (MA/MSc)

Bear Lee

"Snatched Clay" is the controller that enables sculpting with clay in the virtual world. With it, sculptors can digitally model only with physical sculpting skills without learning the tools of unfamiliar digital modeling applications. This controller allows the user to hold the clay, feel its mass, adjust its amount, and sculpt. Its users can use the intuitive and primitive clay skills inherited from the birth of humankind and the skills they have accumulated while playing tactile play as a child in the virtual world for sculpting.

This controller was developed based on the practical habits of the sculptor. The size of the controller changes according to the mass of clay the user touches in the virtual world. In the virtual world, the gripping area of ​​the controller's palm expands when the user grabs a large chunk of clay and decreases when gripping a small chunk of clay. The buttons on the thumb and index finger of the controller shrink and grow by the amount they use in the virtual world.


Show Location: Kensington campus: Darwin Building, Lower ground floor

Bear Lee-statement

I am an artist and engineering designer. Based on my long experience in the field of construction and art, I am interested in using new technologies to apply them to these fields to solve problems, or to find answers in the physical realm to solve problems of new technologies. I am also demonstrating the skills I've gained in these two realms to the audience in art, showing them things they've never seen before.

Survey and interview with sculptuors and industry desingers, media item 1
Survey and interview with sculptuors and industry desingers, media item 2

In order to make practical VR tools for modelers, the development direction was determined through interviews and surveys with students majoring in sculpture and industrial design from 24 universities in Korea and the UK, as well as the British Royal Sculpture Arts Organization and industrial designers.

Experiments, media item 1

Development began with the development of a form that could transmit the form of clay to a computer in real-time. However, the interaction between clay and computer that future users want rather than unilaterally transmitting clay data to the computer.

Prototype, media item 2

Sculptors who used this controller reviewed that their controller gave them a sense of touch and mass similar to sculpting with clay.