A 3D Curve Sketching System For Tablets

dominique_cimafranca writes "The Dynamic Graphics Project of the University of Toronto has released a pretty nifty 3D curve sketching system. Apart from the large drawing area, the tablet software looks very intuitive to artists. From the site: 'The system coherently integrates existing techniques of sketch-based interaction with a number of novel and enhanced features. Novel contributions of the system include automatic view rotation to improve curve sketchability, an axis widget for sketch surface selection, and implicitly inferred changes between sketching techniques. We also improve on a number of existing ideas such as a virtual sketchbook, simplified 2D and 3D view navigation, multi-stroke NURBS curve creation, and a cohesive gesture vocabulary.'"

Comments

Could be useful for video game artists

[Dutch Gun]

This seems like it could be very useful in bridging the gap between concept art and a fully rendered 3d model. I'll have to remember to point this out to a few of my artist colleagues at work and see what they think about it.

Of course, I'll probably have to warn them to turn off the sound first. Quick hint to the developers of this cool little toy: Artists get nervous when when programmers start talking about "single view symmetric epipolar method" and other very complicated terms. If you've ever worked with artists before, you know you're starting to get too technical when the eyes start glazing over. I then know to take a step back and try to re-phrase in non-tech.

All you programmers are now thinking "but... that's exactly what it's describing", and I'll just put my hand to my head and sigh. Different ways of thinking.

Don't even get me started about trying to get in the heads of game designers.

Re:Could be useful for video game artists

[Dutch Gun]

It would be an interesting experiment, but the big variable - and I think one impossible to judge with any scientific methodology - is how each method helped or hindered the artists' creative process. If this tool allowed them to quickly try out new concepts that would only otherwise be available to a more freehand 2d process... it would seem to have some promise. It's a little hard to tell from a short video whether this would be useful, because we saw a few very limited examples with what was obviously a very expert user.

Even if this system ultimately doesn't prove itself in the market as a commercial product, I think it's likely pioneered some pretty creative interfaces that may *evolve* into something that does end up revolutionizing 3D computer modeling. Not to oversell it or anything, but it really does seem to have potential in the way it uses natural gestures and tries to intuit what the *intent* of the user is, rather than doing what most computer programs do - is accept *literal* input.

Cool.

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

The UI for open, save, delete, etc. seems gallingly stupid, just use the damn keyboard(yeah, flipping from corner to corner to turn pages will be realy intuitive when there are 500 of them...). The UI for drawing, though, looks amazing. Substantial amounts of the correct automatic stuff happening automatically, just really impressive translation of standard flat pseudo-3D sketching into 3D models. Most impressive.

Rocks, as in "there's a rock in your shoe"?

[argent]

Blender rocks?

Blender's user interface is so bad that I can't imagine what the designer was thinking. Seriously. It's almost as if he hated end-users and decided that the only way he could express his hate was to make a program that appears superficially usable but caused as much pain and frustration possible when people tried to learn it.