FabObscura: Computational Design and Fabrication for Interactive Barrier-Grid Animations

ACM User Interface Software & Technology (UIST), 2025

Abstract

We present FabObscura: a system for creating interactive barrier-grid animations, a classic technique that uses occlusion patterns to create the illusion of motion. Whereas traditional barrier-grid animations are constrained to simple linear occlusion patterns,FabObscura introduces a parameterization that represents patterns as mathematical functions. Our parameterization offers two key advantages over existing barrier-grid animation design methods: first, it has a high expressive ceiling by enabling the systematic design of novel patterns; second, it is versatile enough to represent all established forms of barrier-grid animations.

Using this parameterization, our computational design tool enables an end-to-end workflow for authoring, visualizing, and fabricating these animations without domain expertise. Our applications demonstrate how FabObscura can be used to create animations that respond to a range of user interactions, such as translations, rotations, and changes in viewpoint. By formalizing barrier-grid animation as a computational design material, FabObscura extends its expressiveness as an interactive medium.

Bibtex

@inproceedings{2025-fabobscura,
  title = {{FabObscura: Computational Design and Fabrication for Interactive Barrier-Grid Animations}},
  author = {Ticha Sethapakdi AND Maxine Perroni-Scharf AND Mingming Li AND Jiaji Li AND Justin Solomon AND Arvind Satyanarayan AND Stefanie Mueller},
  booktitle = {ACM User Interface Software \& Technology (UIST)},
  year = {2025},
  url = {https://vis.csail.mit.edu/pubs/fabobscura}
}
FabObscura: Computational Design and Fabrication for Interactive Barrier-Grid Animations

FabObscura is a system for creating visually dynamic physical media based on the classic barrier-grid animation technique. We introduce a novel parameterization and computational design tool for systematically designing new barrier-grid animations without domain expertise. Our abstraction is expressive enough to support animations that respond to diverse user interactions, such as translations, rotations, and changes in viewpoint.