KineticCAD

Inspiration

Replicating physical curved edges and organic contours in CAD software traditionally involves time-consuming manual caliper measurements and trial-and-error sketching. We wanted to build an intuitive, handheld IoT device that lets designers scan real-world contours seamlessly into editable digital sketches.

What it does

KineticCAD is an ergonomic, wearable clip-on digitizing tool. By gliding the base tracking sensor along any physical surface, it captures high-frequency contour motion and spatial orientation in real time, converting raw trajectory data into smooth parametric Bézier splines rendered on the onboard OLED display and synced directly to Autodesk Fusion 360 over 4G cloud connectivity.

How we built it

• Optical & IMU Tracking: Integrated a PMW3360 optical flow tracking sensor (up to 12,000 FPS) paired with an MPU-6050 6-axis IMU for continuous displacement and tilt mapping.
• Embedded Processing: Programmed the Arduino UNO Q core to filter raw optical pulses, compute parametric spline curves, and trigger haptic feedback at standard geometric angles.
• CAD Cloud Integration: Connected the workflow via 4G LTE-M and the Autodesk Fusion 360 API to turn scanned coordinate knots directly into 3D sketches.
• Enclosure & Assembly: Designed 3D CAD models (.obj, .mtl, .step) featuring internal LiPo battery cavities, OLED display bezels, and modular clip attachments.

Challenges we ran into

Calibrating real-time noise reduction from high-frequency optical sensor readings while maintaining precise coordinate alignment with IMU angular drift required implementing a custom mathematical filtering algorithm for smooth spline knots.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Successfully generating real-time parametric CAD splines on an embedded microcontroller and creating a complete end-to-end hardware architecture with cloud sync to Autodesk Fusion 360.

What we learned

We gained in-depth experience interfacing high-speed optical tracking sensors over SPI, processing 6-axis IMU sensor fusion, designing 3D CAD assemblies for rapid manufacturing, and integrating cloud APIs with embedded systems.

What's next for KineticCAD

We plan to implement multi-axis 3D spatial scanning modes, integrate Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) alongside 4G, and enable direct integration with augmented reality (AR) headsets for real-time CAD sketching.

Built With

• arduino
• autodesk-fusion-360
• c++
• edge-ai
• embedded
• hardware
• iot