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Project Name: Sketch Interfaces

Project Leader

Karan Singh

Project Co-Leader

Faramarz Samavati

Researchers

Theme Distribution

Theme 1 : 10%
Theme 2 : 15%
Theme 3 : 60%
Theme 5 : 15%

Project Description

This project builds upon the convergence of two significant trends. The first is that sketching is a universal metaphor for visual communication which harnessed appropriately can provide a compelling interface to digital content creation by a broader audience. The second is the increasing emergence devices and displays that support tactile input. Sketch-based interfaces are thus the natural communion of tactile input and a universally understood medium of visual communication that mimic traditional metaphors of drawing, painting, and gesturing.

In computer graphics, the creation of digital content, geometric models and animation, have traditionally been the domain of skilled experts interacting with complex software packages that are tedious and challenging to use. With the increasing emphasis on user-driven content creation, computer graphics is changing from a medium which is created by experts and consumed by the masses, to a medium all aspects of digital content are accessible to a broader public. While Everyone can draw may not be strictly accurate, but there is a universal desire and capacity for visual communication through sketching: a few quick pencil strokes, can often convey complex shapes and motion. Coupled with the increasingly widespread use of devices that support tactile input, such as the TabletPC, SmartBoard, iPhone, and NintendoDS, interfaces and algorithms that infer user interaction and creation of 3D models and animation from 2D sketch strokes will change the way such content is created and consumed (Nealen et al, 2007; Davis et al, 2003; Lipson et al, 2002; Landay & Myers, 2001).

In a more abstract setting, sketching has the potential for complex gestural communication, specially when combined with the affordances of tactile input such as speed, pressure or pen tilt. Research on approaches that exploit this information in various contexts will result in interaction vocabularies that are both more powerful and natural to users than current interfaces.

Excellence of the Research

Development of Highly Qualified Personnel (HQP)

The project will support grad students from Toronto, Calgary, British Columbia, Victoria, Montreal, Carleton and Waterloo. Training for grad students as researchers/developers in computer graphics, interfaces, and software. This is of great value for the leading and prominent Canadian computer graphics, animation and interactive design industries.

Networking and Partnerships

The team includes an outstanding group of internationaly recognized researchers (NIs and CRs) spanning the areas of graphics, human computer interaction and vision. We have active and ongoing collaborations with Autodesk and Intel in this area sketch-based modeling as evidenced by our recent publications. We also have active collaborations with MapleSoft and Microsoft in math recognition and with PARC Inc. in sketch interfaces and hope to develop a partnership with SMART technologies in the area of sketch-based education and training.

Knowledge and Technology Exchange and Exploitation

4. Knowledge and Technology Exchange and Exploitation (3/4 page) A project page will be used to disseminate research outcomes in terms of publications, software systems (maintained as freeware and bootstrapped using a user forum). We currently have two such ongoing research prototypes Shapeshop and ILoveSketch. We will also actively look into technology transfer for mature industrially relevant research on this project along the lines of Sketch2 (a start-up founded on sketch-based modeling research done at the University of Toronto).

A sketching interface for articulated animation. Davis, James, Agrawala, Maneesh, Chuang, Erika, Popovic , Zoran, Salesin, David,

2003. In: Symposium on Computer Animation, pp. 320328.

Sketching interfaces: toward more human interface design. J A Landay, B A Myers, Computer (2001) Volume: 34 Issue: 3 Pages: 56-64.

Correlation-based reconstruction of a 3D object from a single freehand sketch. Lipson, Hod, Shpitalni, Moshe, 2002. In: Davis, Randall, Landay, James, Stahovich, Tom (Eds.), American Association for Artificial Intelligence Spring Symposium: Sketch Understanding. Stanford University in Palo Alto, AAAI, California.

FiberMesh: Designing Freeform Surfaces with 3D Curves. Andrew Nealen, Takeo Igarashi, Olga Sorkine and Marc Alexa, , ACM Transactions on Computer Graphics, ACM SIGGRAPH 2007, San Diego, USA, 2007.

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