Rapid prototyping and 3D Kanji sculpturing

In this paper we present a novel concept for constructing Kanji (or Chinese characters) in three dimensions. As written or printed characters, Kanji are essentially flat, so a uniform thickness is usually applied when such character shapes are cut from different materials to produce 2.5D physical objects. Both written and cut Kanji are single view objects that are normally seen from the front. The 3D Kanji that we propose, in contrast, are constructed as multi-view objects and can be seen from multiple directions. Obviously, a well sculptured 3D Kanji character should be semantically equivalent in its multiplicity of views. To achieve that, our method for creation of 3D Kanji constructs objects that project to 2D Kanji in multiple directions.