Additive manufacturing is revolutionizing the ability to create fit-for-purpose materials and components. From construction materials to airplane wings, advanced manufacturing technologies make it feasible to create objects with an incredible array of features—think adaptive structures with built-in sensors or mechanical components that also provide insulation—that would be impossible with traditional manufacturing methods. Instead of designing structures within the constraints of existing materials and fabrication methods, engineers can create new materials in parallel with component designs to optimize the material properties, shape, and manufacturability simultaneously.
Despite the incredible potential, the vast design space enabled by these technologies poses challenges of its own. With funding from DARPA, Xingchen Liu, Vadim Shapiro, and colleagues developed an API to help designers optimize different shape and material property representations across scales. Their solution uses the concept of a neighborhood to link adjacent scales such that the effective material property of the structure on the fine scale equals the material property on the coarse scale. This approach allows designers to explore different families of fine-scale structures that support a common set of effective properties, as well as work with downstream applications such as visualization and manufacturing planning tools to assess features across scales. The project lays the foundation for future computer-aided design systems that unlock the true potential of additive manufacturing.
This story was published in January 2026 as part of a retrospective series highlighting ICSI’s accomplishments and impacts over the years. To learn about our ongoing work, explore our Core Research Themes.