2D Drawing To 3D Object Tool

legoburner writes, "Takeo Igarashi from the University of Tokyo has a very impressive java applet/program, called Teddy, which he describes as 'A Sketching Interface for 3D Freeform Design', and basically allows you to sketch in simple 2D and have it automatically converted to full 3D. The tool is certainly very impressive and there is a demonstration video available. The end product looks like a hand-drawn object instead of the usual clinical, perfect 3D objects that are designed using standard rendering tools." This impressive technology was presented at SigGraph 1999 (PDF); a commercial product based on it is available in Japan.

Comments

So...

[O'Laochdha]

What happens if you give Escher this thing?

It's still 2006, right?

[Clipper]

As the headline points out, this was demoed at SIGGRAPH 1999. Umm, maybe someone could tell me why Slashdot is featuring news from 7 years ago on the front page. Igarashi's work was novel at the time (in fact, he won the Significant New Researcher Award at this year's SIGGRAPH partly because of it), but let's remember that it's 2006 and a lot has been done in the world of sketch based interfaces. SmoothSketch3D is just one example from this year alone.

Re:It's still 2006, right?

[Ai Olor-Wile]

Because it was just on Digg, that's why.