ILoveSketch, a new 3D curve sketching system for product designers

While I was checking out News YCombinator website (a good source of fresh news, by the way), I came across a rather plain page (full specifications as PDF file)

Drawing talent for free

When I was a kid I liked to draw (mostly comics), but I was never very talented. But if I had had software like ILoveSketch then, who knows? Maybe that little passion would have grown and ultimately led to a full time job.

Seok-Hyung Bae, Ravin Balakrishnan and Karan Singh, three students of University of Toronto-Canada (Department of Computer Science), bring a new way to draw 3D curves models.

This concept, named ILoveSketch, will be presented on ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology 2008 (Monterey, CA, USA, October 19-22, 2008). In their words:

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.

After watching their video presentation I was sold (even if I am just a lousy amateur). The software is quite intuitive and it seems it does things that haven’t been done before. For hardware they use a Wacom tablet system.

Every product needs a design

Professional product designers will love this new way of working (a professional designer evaluated the system and shows the potential of their system for deployment within a real design process). I think this could be another startup idea ready to go in the wild. Because almost every new product needs to be designed first, the market for such system is already there. Enjoy the video!

ILoveSketch from Seok-Hyung Bae on Vimeo.