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3D Modelling From a Sketch

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the helluva-lot-easier-than-autocad dept.

hargettp writes "Happened to be skimming through the December BoingBoing and I noticed this link to research into 3D modelling by interpreting sketches. Basically, with a pen and tablet and a good Java applet, a user can start digitally modelling 3D structures about as easy as if they were molding clay with their bare hands. It was the demonstration video that made my jaw drop. Impressive!"

8 of 215 comments (clear)

  1. maybe a use for tablet pcs by anthony_philipp · · Score: 4, Interesting

    maybe this will give some purpose to tablet pcs. sounds pretty sweet, but it was already /.ed so i couldnt read it. kinda dissapointing. either that or the link was bad.

  2. 3d sketch applications, formz and sketchup by bstil · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Old news to architects.

    FormZ (www.formz.com) has had simple 3d sketching capabilities for years. SketchUp (mentioned in previous posts) is one of the most user-friendly tools available today. However, most Sketchup functionality already exists in formZ. SketchUp just makes sketching (1) fun, (2) easy, and (3) look like pencil sketch lines or cartoon lines.

  3. well by zboy · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I'm not really sure about what was orignially posted, but in some ways it does sound an awful lot like ZBrush..I've seen it demo'd at the macworld expo on a few occasions and its a pretty cool looking piece of software

  4. reminds me of a neat sketched out physics sim by RevAaron · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Saw a video a few months back of new research (teddy is old) having to do with using sketches to draw out a physics simulation. written in Java. IIRC, done at MIT's Oxygen lab. Anyway, it was incredible- the guy draws a ramp. Draws a box at the top of the ramp, adds wheels. hit go and the whole thing is played out at 1 G in the way it would here on earth. I would knife someone to get a hold of that. Ok, maybe not that, but yeah, it'd be great.

    --

    Working toward a usable PDA environment in the spirit of Newton OS: Dynapad
  5. There is a PS2 game that uses something like this. by darkmayo · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Magic Pengel : The Quest for Color
    You draw a doodle and the game will turn it into a 3d sprite that you fight with.
    anyways here is a URL from Gamespot about this

    http://www.gamespot.com/ps2/strategy/colorquestt en tativetitle/

    --
    "I am a kernel in the linux army"
  6. I saw this at Siggraph by spitzak · · Score: 4, Interesting

    He was also an excellent speaker, very entertaining. He had used his program to draw characters from the movies shown in the Electronic Theatre during the show.

    The program I thought was brilliant. It is what user interface should be, not a thousand menus and "toolbars" but an empty window that you click on and it "does what you want". Too bad there is no sign of such interfaces showing up in real-world applications, either open or closed...

    1. Re:I saw this at Siggraph by Cthefuture · · Score: 4, Interesting

      It is what user interface should be, not a thousand menus and "toolbars" but an empty window that you click on and it "does what you want". Too bad there is no sign of such interfaces showing up in real-world applications, either open or closed...

      Hmmm... There are several highly useful applications that sport exactly (well, close it it... they are more powerful than Teddy) that type of interface. They are the "secrets" of the 3D modelling world and once you use them you'll wish everything else worked like them.

      Mirai and Nendo are two commercial offerings and Wings 3D is a free modeling app that has a similar interface. Dispite all the Maya press, Mirai was used for some critical parts of LOTR.

      Izware (aka Winged Edge Technologies; aka Nichimen; aka Symbolics; aka ...) is the company that makes Mirai and Nendo. They have always been a strange company with very poor marketing and management skills so not many people know how great their stuff is. The company is always in a bizarre state of flux. For instance right now their main page says "We'll be right back" with no other links at all (it's been like this for ages; more than a year).

      Wings 3D fits between Nendo and Mirai. It's better than Nendo but doesn't offer all that Mirai does. However, it's free and open-source.

      The key to the useful UI is the context sensitive menus. All complex applications should work this way because it narrows down the possible actions to what you're working on. Instead of having hundreds or thousands of menus and buttons to push (*cough* 3DSMAX *cough*), you just have simple context menus based on what you have selected. It's a superb interface for managing complexity.

      Plus the help system is built right into the interface.

      --
      The ratio of people to cake is too big
  7. A-VOLVE by mattr · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Also Christa Sommerer and Laurent Mignonneaux developed a while ago another Siggraph-shown art project called A-Volve. I think their server can take it.. Also here you can see the drawing screen. You make fish by drawing the schematic and they swim in a crt under real water.. and have kids who look and act a bit like the parents! Nice people too. See the interaction and a bigger picture. They also developed gesture recognition based projects and were at NTT's ATR lab in Kyoto. Now I think still at IAMAS in Gifu, Japan. This maybe precedes Igarashi's work though his is also great stuff.