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Technology shapes the way we interact with the world around us; MIT’s Tangible Media Group takes this quite literally with inFORM, a “Dynamic Shape Display” that can render digital 3D content in physical space. While impressive in its own right, inFORM is merely a step in Tangible Media Group’s Radical Atoms vision, which is aimed at developing a material platform that can change shape and form in both digital and physical states.
This shape display goes above and beyond the limitations of 3D printing, allowing users to actively create and shape physical form, even from a remote location. The applications of this platform could help advance the way maps, terrain models, architectural models, and 3D art design projects are created and shared between their designers and viewers. Delving into the medical realm, volumetric data, such as MRI and CT scan findings, could be mapped, observed, and interacted with. Further development on this technology, such as refining the detail on which information is displayed, could even lead to incredible applications like medical and surgical simulation.
Words simply do not do inFORM justice, so we have included a demonstration video of it in action.