PÅCKER: Making Large Laser-Cut Objects Easy to Store and Transport

We present PÅCKER, a software tool that makes large, laser-cut 3D objects efficient to pack and ship. Inspired by modern flat-pack furniture, PÅCKER achieves this by decomposing 3D models into multiple 3D components. Components are pre-assembled at the vendor’s site, shipped efficiently (since components tend to be convex, they pack well), and post-assembled IKEA-style at the receiver’s site. PÅCKER users decompose models using our custom split tool, which requires them to specify only where to split the model; the tool then automatically selects the most suitable split plane and connector type. Models componentized using PÅCKER are robust: in our technical evaluation, they withstood 94Nm+ of torque. In our user study, participants assembled decomposed chair models about 3.6x faster than the control group and rated them as requiring less demand to assemble.

Publication

Shohei Katakura, Chiao Fang, Lukas Rambold, Martin Taraz, Lino Hellige, Robert Kovacs, Muhammad Abdullah, and Patrick Baudisch. 2026. PÅCKER: Making Large Laser-Cut Objects Easy to Store and Transport. In Proceedings of the 39th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST'26)

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