Smart materials have garnered significant attention in both academia and industry, yet identifying pragmatically impactful applications still requires contributions from multiple stakeholders, including researchers, designers, and industry professionals.Although previous research has explored novel technical approaches or user-centered applications of smart materials, this study focuses on how to stimulate effective dialogue among stakeholders to explore impactful smart material applications.

InkBrush is a new sketch-based 3D drawing tool for creating 3D ink paintings using free-form 3D ink strokes. It offers a digital calligraphy brush and various editing tools to generate realistic ink-like brush strokes with attributes like hairy edges, ink drips, and scattered dots. Users can adjust parameters such as moisture, color, darkness, dryness, and stroke style to customize the appearance of the brush strokes. The development of InkBrush was guided by a design study involving artists and designers. It was developed as a plugin for Blender, a popular 3D modeling tool, and its effectiveness and usability were evaluated through a user study involving 75 participants. Preliminary feedback from the participants was overwhelmingly positive, indicating that InkBrush was intuitive and easy to use. Following this, we also sought in-depth assessments from experts in ink painting and 3D design. Their evaluations further demonstrated the effectiveness of InkBrush.

Shadow puppetry, a culturally rich storytelling art, faces challenges transitioning to the digital realm. Creators in the early design phase struggle with crafting intricate patterns, textures, and basic animations while adhering to stylistic conventions - hindering creativity, especially for novices. This paper presents Lumina, a tool to facilitate the early Chinese shadow puppet design stage. Lumina provides contour templates, animations, scene editing tools, and machine-generated traditional puppet patterns. These features liberate creators from tedious tasks, allowing focus on the creative process. Developed based on a formative study with puppet creators, the web-based Lumina enables wide dissemination. An evaluation with 18 participants demonstrated Lumina’s effectiveness and ease of use, with participants successfully creating designs spanning traditional themes to contemporary and science-fiction concepts.