COMPUTATIONAL PRODUCT DESIGN AND PROTOTYPING OF CUSTOMIZED SANDALS

Computational customized product design and the use of 3D printing for prototyping purposes seems to follow a trend towards becoming a mainstream procedure. Computational design offers the opportunity to provide different design proposals via CAD based programming tools. This technology coupled with the use of 3D printing provides a number of advantages to product customization, customer satisfaction, time needed and material consumption. The present research is making extensive use of computational design tools for designing sandals, based on the user’s plantar pressure acquired. The proposed automated tool created unusual sandal-sole geometries that could be fabricated only by 3D printing technology, while at the same time different geometrical algorithms were tested (Swartz Primitive and Gyroid). The output supported by the early evaluation performed, proved that that Gyroid based sandal-soles provided best satisfaction for the user but from the material needed for fabrication point of view the Swartz Primitive algorithm demanded less material