Reading #21: Teddy: A Sketching Interface for 3D Freeform Design

COMMENTS ON OTHERS:

            Francisco

SUMMARY

            The paper proposes the “Teddy”, an idea of creating a sketching interface for designing 3D freeform objects. This allows the user to draw 2D freeform strokes interactively specifying the silhouette of an object and the system is capable of automatically constructing the 3D polygonal surface model based on the strokes.

The user does not have to manipulate control points or combine complicated editing operations. Using this technique, even first-time users can create simple, yet expressive 3D models within minutes. 

Teddy’s physical user interface is based upon traditional 2D input devices such as a standard mouse or tablet. As soon as the user finishes drawing the stroke, the system automatically constructs a corresponding 3D shape. The program supports operations of creating new object, painting and erasing on the surface, Extrusion, cutting, smoothing and transformation. In order to remove noise in the handwriting input stroke and to construct a regular polygonal mesh, every input stroke is re-sampled to form a smooth polyline with uniform edge length before further processing 

DISCUSSION

            The authors follow the general philosophy of keeping the user interface simple by inferring the intention of a few, easy-to-learn commands, rather than providing an exhaustive set of commands and asking the user to set several parameters for each one. However, this is done by limiting the complexity and types of shapes that can be created by the user. Furthermore, the proposed system is not provided with a resultant accuracy measures and comparison parameters.