A handheld router that uses machine vision and GPS to guide the cutting path is getting closer and closer to the market. As a product of MIT graduate research, the first version was proposed in a 2012 Siggraph paper by Alec Rivers, Ilan E. Moyer, and Fredo Durand. After further development, the router was called "Taktia".

Now entering the venture capital field with the support of Roo Venture Capital, the router has been redesigned by the former Google product developer, according to popular science reports, and renamed Shaper. The tool is developed by www.ShaperTools.com

In 2012, Rivers, a doctoral student in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, learned woodworking techniques while trying to make a simple picture frame using woodworking equipment inherited from his grandfather. Although he measured and aligned his tools as much as possible with his hands, Rivers found that he couldn't make the shapes with enough precision to put them all together.

"I feel very frustrated because, like any home project, I will cut out some things, they should look correct, but none of the parts will line up," Rivers said.

Rivers decided that there must be a better wa. As an MIT student, he designed a mechanical engineering department with his colleague Frédo Durand, EECS associate professor and Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) and graduate student Ilan Moyer. The trio began to develop a new type of woodworking router-a cutting tool similar to a drill-that can automatically cut accurate shapes from a piece of material by following a digital design. The result is that when the user roughly moves the router around the shape to be cut, the handheld device can adjust its position to accurately follow the digital plan.

After the project was completed, the team published a paper on handheld computers controlling routers at the Siggraph 2012 research conference. Alec Rivers, Ilan E. Moyer, and Fredo Durand’s paper entitled "Position Correction Tool for 2D Digital Manufacturing" roughly describes that a handheld router can be placed in a chisel and then guided by a machine vision system. Cut board on the landscape. http://groups.csail.mit.edu/graphics/positioncorrectingtools/ 

Work on the router continues. Taktia’s original site points to www.ShaperTools.com, where you can get a mailing list to keep up with the commercial version of the upcoming location correction router.

Have something to say? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below.

Bill writes for WoodworkingNetwork.com, FDMC and Closets & Organized Storage magazine. 

Bill's background includes more than 10 years of experience in printing manufacturing management, followed by more than 30 years of industrial manufacturing business reports in the forest products industry, including printing and packaging magazines of American Printing Company (special editor) and Graphic Arts Monthly (editor); and WoodworkingNetwork .com's secondary wood manufacturing.

Bill was deeply involved in the launch of the Woodworking Network Leadership Forum and the award program for 40 under 40s. He currently reports on technology and business trends and develops meeting plans.

In addition to his job as a reporter, Bill also supports efforts to expand and improve educational opportunities in the manufacturing industry, including 10 years in the Printing and Graphics Scholarship Foundation; six years in WoodLinks in the United States; and currently serving on the Board of Education of the Woodworking Professional League. He also supports the Greater Western Township Training Cooperative Woodworking Program, which has trained more than 950 adults in industrial wood manufacturing occupations. 

Bill is a volunteer at the Foinse Research Station, a biological field station that straddles the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland. It is one of more than 200 members of the biological field station organization.

Sign up for Woodworking Network Newsletter

Get the latest headline news subscription sent to you every day