Beady: interactive beadwork design and construction

Abstract

Beadwork is the art of connecting beads together by wires. While common beadwork is two-dimensional (2D), three-dimensional (3D) beadwork is also popular in oriental regions such as Japan and China. However, the design and construction of 3D beadwork is very difficult. The final shape is defined by the complicated three-dimensional interaction between beads and wires, thus making it very difficult to design manually. One also needs to specify an appropriate wire path to hold the beads together and to manually insert the wire into the beads one by one following the path to construct the beadwork. Careful observation of existing beadwork structures shows several geometrically interesting problems, which make beadwork design an interesting technical challenge.