Touchscreens get curves thanks to 3D printed optics

The future's curvy. Until now, if you wanted to build a gadget or toy with a screen then you had to design it so that a flat one could be attached afterwards. Now curved displays can be made while the device is being 3D printed – thanks to a way of printing optical fibres developed by Disney Research in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Called Papillon, the technique lets designers create surfaces that can display wraparound interactive imagery. It has already been used to create colourful, 3D-printed plastic characters with bulbous, animated eyeballs that can display messages and patterns.

Revealed at this week's User Interface Software and Technology conference in St Andrews, UK, Papillon was developed by Ivan Poupyrev and Eric Brockmeyer at Disney Research and Scott Hudson of Carnegie Mellon University, also in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Dual purpose

Their trick is to place an image source, like an LED screen, underneath or inside the device where it cannot be seen. Optical fibres then relay the picture to a curved surface.

To create these, they use the laser in a 3D printer to do more than just build the main structure: it also turns a type of translucent light-sensitive plastic – called a photopolymer – into a bunch of optical fibres.

In the prototype characters, the technique was used to create eyeballs that display a pulsing red heart that can change into a big yellow smiley – and back.

Also, because optical fibres work in both directions, touching the surface reflects light back to the hidden display – meaning it acts as a touchscreen too.

Personalised Papillon

"Printing the fibres lets us define the motion of a character's eyeballs, say, and yet print the display that shows it in just one pass," says Markus Gross, director of Disney Research Zurich in Switzerland. He thinks it will speed production of movie tie-in toys – from "princesses to stormtroopers" – and boost creativity, too.

The design variety that Papillon offers sounds like a boon to the emerging maker movement, says Bethany Koby of Technology Will Save Us, an organisation that trains people to make their own electronic devices.

"Innovations like this help us imagine a much more interesting world where people can be more creative and create more meaningful, bespoke and personalised technologies," she says.