Create furniture out of thin air

Motion capture technology has brought to life indelible characters such as Gollum and Davy Jones in the movies, but for the first time, a Swedish design firm is bringing the technology to people’s bedrooms to create truly personalized furniture. The 3-person FRONT Design team “draws” directly into the air using the tip of a pen, creating invisible line sequences that are captured by surrounding cameras connected to computers. Then, the sketches are translated into 3D digital files, which are subsequently materialized through an innovative Rapid Prototyping technique.

Here’s where it gets crazy: The Rapid Prototyping form is the digital system connected to a plastic molding machine that includes a laser beam positioned on the top of the structure and solidifies the liquid plastic 0.1mm at a time, layer-by-layer, and finely detailing the recorded digital sketches. The end result is a fully functional, and oddly familiar, piece of furniture, with the whole process taking about a day.

As expected with something this interesting, the design team has been on a whirlwind tour with full “performances” of their work in Miami, Tokyo., and other cities.

Watch the video below for the process details and the accompanying presentation, which is both fascinating and strange: