• moulds
• computational fabrication
• computer graphics
• mesh
• manifold

When we talk about computational fabrication, we refer to a production process involving specialized software to optimize and automatize the realization of the target products.
With the help of computer graphics tools, the object to produce can be virtually analysed and modified beforehand in order to fulfil particular requirements imposed by the user's needs and the fabrication systems at disposal, and only later the instructions are sent to the designated machine in charge to fabricate it.
In this work, we take advantage of the existing techniques in computer graphics to manipulate an input solid object represented by means of its closed outer surface, with the goal of automatically generating a multi-piece rigid mould to employ in its fabrication by casting.
Regardless of the shape of the object, provided that all the points on its surface are visible from the outside, we first exploit certain optimization techniques to segment the surface into patches that are extractable from a chosen direction; then, starting from such patches, we derive a partition of the target mould, providing the extraction order of the pieces and guaranteeing that they can be disassembled without locking each other.