Subramanian Chidambaram Archives - Convergence Design Lab, Purdue University

Towards a Comprehensive and Robust Micromanipulation System with Force-Sensing and VR Capabilities

Jul 7, 2021

Georges Adam, Subramanian Chidambaram, Sai Swarup Reddy, Karthik Ramani, David J. Cappelleri

Micromachines

In this modern world, with the increase of complexity of many technologies, especially in the micro and nanoscale, the field of robotic manipulation has tremendously grown. Microrobots and other complex microscale systems are often to laborious to fabricate using standard microfabrication techniques, therefore there is a trend towards fabricating them in parts then assembling them together, mainly using micromanipulation tools. Here, a comprehensive and robust micromanipulation platform is presented, in which four micromanipulators can be used simultaneously to perform complex tasks,...

ProcessAR: An augmented reality-based tool to create in-situ procedural 2D/3D AR Instructions

Jun 29, 2021

Subramanian Chidambaram, Hank Huang, Fengming He, Xun Qian, Ana M Villanueva, Thomas S Redick, Wolfgang Stuerzlinger, Karthik Ramani

In Proceedings of the Designing Interactive Systems Conference

Augmented reality (AR) is an efficient form of delivering spatial information and has great potential for training workers. However, AR is still not widely used for such scenarios due to the technical skills and expertise required to create interactive AR content. We developed ProcessAR, an AR-based system to develop 2D/3D content that captures subject matter expert’s (SMEs) environment object interactions in situ. The design space for ProcessAR was identified from formative interviews with AR programming experts and SMEs, alongside a comparative design study with SMEs and novice users. To...

FabHandWear : An End-to-End Pipeline from Design to Fabrication of Customized Functional Hand Wearables

Jun 28, 2021

Luis Paredes, Sai Swarup Reddy, Subramanian Chidambaram, Devashri Vagholkar, Yunbo Zhang, Bedrich Benes, Karthik Ramani

In Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies

Current hand wearables have limited customizability, they are loose-fit to an individual's hand and lack comfort. The main barrier in customizing hand wearables is the geometric complexity and size variation in hands. Moreover, there are different functions that the users can be looking for; some may only want to detect hand's motion or orientation; others may be interested in tracking their vital signs. Current wearables usually fit multiple functions and are designed for a universal user with none or limited customization. There are no specialized tools that facilitate the creation of...

VRFromX: From Scanned Reality to Interactive Virtual Experience with Human-in-the-Loop

Jun 5, 2021

Ananya Ipsita, Hao Li, Runlin Duan, Yuanzhi Cao, Subramanian Chidambaram, Min Liu, Karthik Ramani

In Extended Abstracts of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

There is an increasing trend of Virtual-Reality (VR) applications found in education, entertainment, and industry. Many of them utilize real world tools, environments, and interactions as bases for creation. However, creating such applications is tedious, fragmented, and involves expertise in authoring VR using programming and 3D-modelling softwares. This hinders VR adoption by decoupling subject matter experts from the actual process of authoring while increasing cost and time. We present VRFromX, an in-situ Do-It-Yourself (DIY) platform for content creation in VR that allows users to...

Congratulations to Subramanian Chidambaram for receiving the 2020 Graduate School Mentoring Award for Graduate Students

Jun 29, 2020

Subramanian Chidambaram was named a co-recipient of the 2020 Purdue Graduate School Mentoring Award for Graduate Students. His impressive work with peer mentoring was recognized by the Graduate School. Purdue University appreciated the commitment he made to its students in terms of their research, job preparation, and social support. He received glowing endorsements from many mentees detailing how he had helped to move their careers forward. His students said, “His wise advice and willingness to explore and analyze my options gave me the clarity that helped me choose the path I am in now,”...

Shape Structuralizer: Design, Fabrication, and User-driven Iterative Refinement of 3D Mesh Models

Feb 11, 2019

Subramanian Chidambaram, Yunbo Zhang, Venkatraghavan Sundararajan, Niklas Elmqvist, and Karthik Ramani

ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2019), May 4–9, 2019, Glasgow, Scotland, UK

Current Computer-Aided Design (CAD) tools lack proper support for guiding novice users towards designs ready for fabrication. We propose Shape Structuralizer (SS), an interactive design support system that repurposes surface models into structural constructions using rods and custom 3Dprinted joints. Shape Structuralizer embeds a recommendation system that computationally supports the user during design ideation by providing design suggestions on local refinements of the design. This strategy enables novice users to choose designs that both satisfy stress constraints as well as their...

iSoft: A Customizable Soft Sensor with Real-time Continuous Contact and Stretching Sensing

Oct 21, 2017

Sang Ho Yoon, Ke Huo, Yunbo Zhang, Guiming Chen, Luis Paredes, Subramanian Chidambaram, Karthik Ramani

In Proceedings of the 30th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software & Technology (UIST'17) , Quebec City, Canada, 2017 (Acceptance Rate: 22.5%)

We present iSoft, a single volume soft sensor capable of sensing real-time continuous contact and unidirectional stretching. We propose a low-cost and an easy way to fabricate such piezoresistive elastomer-based soft sensors for instant interactions. We employ an electrical impedance tomography (EIT) technique to estimate changes of resistance distribution on the sensor caused by fingertip contact. To compensate for the rebound elasticity of the elastomer and achieve real-time continuous contact sensing, we apply a dynamic baseline update for EIT. The baseline updates are triggered by...