by N. Bao, Y. Zhang, Y. Fan, A. Simeone
Abstract
LEGO® models have become increasingly popular beyond their traditional toy and entertainment uses, and are now employed in fields such as education, cognitive science, engineering, and robotics. However, designing LEGO® models for such diverse applications presents new challenges in terms of automation and optimization.
To tackle such issues, this paper proposes a design support system to automatically generate LEGO® models from any 3D model of a target object, using a specific range of standard LEGO® bricks in a layer-wise fashion. The system converts the 3D model into a LEGO® model using the minimum number of LEGO® bricks required. The core of the proposed system lies in the use of a greedy algorithm for merging optimization of each layer of bricks, and a depth-first search algorithm to optimize the connection between multiple layers of bricks.
Experimental results using several 3D graphics validate the effectiveness of the proposed methodology and its suitability to output the corresponding LEGO® model and detailed layout illustrations for each layer of bricks. The proposed system can provide LEGO® builders with an automated optimization approach for designing LEGO® models, minimizing errors compared to manual design.
Keywords: Design optimization; Greedy algorithm; Graph optimization
Video presentation
Presenting author
 | Name: Affiliation: Email: | Yuchen Fan Shantou University, China 20ycfan@stu.edu.cn |
