A 3D-printing technique can incorporate invisible tags into objects. The process could be used to create tags with the convenience of QR codes without the unsightly appearance, as well as to turn simple objects into videogame controllers.
Tags, such as QR codes, can be scanned to reveal information from an object. The information could be anything from a restaurant鈥檚 menu to details about the object that would help a robot in a warehouse work out what to do with it.
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鈥淵ou go to restaurants and at your table you need to take a picture of the QR code to get the menu. How can we make that a more seamless experience? Like, without having to have these sorts of ugly, big codes visibly on objects?鈥� says聽 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
He and his colleagues have come up with a method to use simple and accessible 3D-printing technology to insert invisible tags into objects. Their InfraredTags are imperceptible to people but can be read by an infrared camera, such as those that can be attached to a smartphone.
The technique relies on a special plastic that appears smooth to the human eye but has clear ridges and edges when viewed using infrared light. These grooves are printed in a particular pattern that can then be converted to a black and white image using software created by the team and processed like a normal visible tag. The work was presented at the in New Orleans this month.
With InfraredTags, restaurants could commission 3D-printed flower vases or glasses embedded with invisible QR codes that linked to their menus.
But the applications go beyond restaurant menus, says Dogan. The researchers have tested how a 3D-printed plastic wheel with an embedded InfraredTag can steer a car in a video game using an infrared camera that tracks how it moves in space. 鈥淭here are lots of different possibilities,鈥� says Dogan.
