Ashish,
Not to get pedantic but Google Sketchup is *not* CAD software,
although it is 3D modeling software (but not solid modeling
software). At least not for all of the most important criteria that
defines one 3D modeling package from a CAD system in terms of
engineering features, robustness, fidelity, etc, it's not CAD
software. It's about as equivalent a comparison as saying 3D Studio
Max is CAD. While it could be potentially used for some CAD
purposes, it's not a CAD software system. Sketchup is in a similar
category.
That said, I realize your point is more to emphasize that Sketchup
has some basic gesture support. I don't think that much was ever in
dispute. My original comment, though, was with regards to being an
effective and productive means of CAD modeling. Even AutoCAD's work
is still very immature and has yet to show much more than being "a
neat demo". If you have references to the contrary, please do share
them. Also, be specific about one or two of the gestures you have in
mind and how it would correspond with a given action.
That doesn't make it still be an interesting project, but it still
would be nice to see some more in-depth review of how this might
actually be an effective interface beyond being "a cool thing for CAD
design systems" (sic). The proposed plan sounds a whole lot to me
like an excuse to continue a project you worked on last year with
still very little relation to BRL-CAD. What is this "BRL-CAD scene
manager" you speak of? I certainly know what that 'could' translate
to in our system, but I don't think you do -- we certainly don't have
a traditional scene management system like it sounds like you are
referring to.
Also, what do you mean by "to develop a CAD multi-touch
application"? If you mean a new application, that sounds like it's
even further detached from BRL-CAD. That won't work. You need to
propose how what you want to do would directly integrate with BRL-
CAD. Not high-level conceptual, you need to be a bit more specific.
Thanks again for the reply. I look forward to seeing what you come
up with.
Cheers!
Sean
p.s. Please reply to all next time so that the developer mailing
list is included.
On Mar 21, 2009, at 5:35 PM, Ashish Kumar Rai wrote:
Hi,
Thanks for your enthusiastic reply. I was working on the basic
blocks of the framework so that I could come with a concrete idea.
Google Sketchup is a CAD software where they build 3D structures
from 2D structures by pulling it etc. Such type of gestures will be
very useful . Similarly , panning, rotation and movement through a
3D structure will be very easy with MT-gestures just as we have
seen in MT-based Google earth application. A lot of work is being
done in this field and coming up in news , notably by AutoCAD .
( http://labs.autodesk.com/technologies/multitouch/ )
Here goes the propsed plan:
The project envisages the development of a package that could be
used in conjunction with Tbeta/Touchlib and BRL-CAD to develop a
CAD multi-touch application to interact with 3D models. Tbeta/
Touchlib (from NUIGroup ) will encapsulate the hardware of the
Multi-Touch setup and will send data of touch-events in TUIO
protocol through TCP/UDP packets. The functionalities provided by
the package will start from this step.
In the implementation the touch-events will be received by a
particular application, relayed by an MPX-type sever, and then it
will be patterned according to the scene ( which is divided into
regions of various sizes which needs to be updated alone when a
touch-event occurs in that region ). The powerful collision
detection of BRL-CAD will be used for thie purpose of patterning.
The MPX-based server thus developed will help in collaboration of
multiple persons working on the design at the same time - through
both at MT surface(s) or with multiple mice support systems- which
I hope will be a cool thing for CAD design systems.
According to the corresponding region, the touch-event data will be
clubbed and sent to Gesture Recognition module in a particular
format which will then, as per the application requirement, pass
commands to the scene-manager of BRL-CAD to update the required
region(s).
The whole work can be summarized in the following five sequential
stages :
1. Design and testing of a ANN based gesture recognition and its
integration with OSCPack and patterning .
2. Integration of the gesture recognition with the BRL-CAD scene
manager.
3. Development of some primitive MT-primitives for BRL-CAD which
can be easily used for model developement .
4. Gesture recognition for designing, editing and model building
from the MT-primitives.
Waiting for your comments and suggestions eagerly !!
On Thu, Mar 19, 2009 at 11:42 PM, Christopher Sean Morrison
<[email protected]> wrote:
Ashish,
Thanks for the message and interest in working with BRL-CAD! Your
idea of working on a touch screen interface for CAD is interesting
and something several of us have been following the research
literature on for many years now. It's a very enticing concept but
I have several questions about what you'd foresee being the near
term gains and what you have to say about some of the criticisms
that MTI's have received.
>In this regard I feel that we can have a headway start in developing
>multi-touch capabilities in CAD softwares.
>I do feel that Multi-Touch(MT) stuff is still in infancy stage but
it has
>started to show its effect through the phenomenal success of
IPhone and
>various big-shot companies are puring in huge money to develop in-
house
>multi-touch software. Hence I would like to propose to start with the
>development of MT based user interface for CAD systems in open
source.
You do identify one potential problem there. MT is in its infancy,
even with efforts like Surface and various phones that now support
MT. What's not been shown yet, though, is the efficacy of MT for
non-casual interactions.
>It is much more intuitive and friendly way for an architect or a
designer to
>develop and show models with his both hands by directly touching
the models
>instead of using the mouse as a pointer device which is more
abstract.
Intuitive and friendly, but not shown to necessarily be more (or
less) productive either as far as I know for "real work". It makes
a great demo and probably even makes for a great visualization
interface, but would you want to use it for actual architecting or
designing? Maybe. Therein, though, is a dilemma in terms of
defining a project that can be scoped with specific goals. :-) How
do you see that working?
Similarly, the various multicontact gestures for 2D imagery is easy
enough but how would you go about extending that to 3D? Is there
any research you'd be using to back up a given direction?
>In the first phase I would like to develop aaplication and
libraries to help
>in interacting with the already build models in an interactive way
on a
>multi-touch device.
>
>In the second phase, I will work on how to develop a User
Interface so that
>a designer can very easily develop models as well as has a
commandline
>running at the same time to give fast inputs. I agree to the fact
that
>currently it is much more covinient and faster to develop a model
with
>commandline. It will start with taking inspirations from Google's
Sketchup
>but will be much more intuitive and easy to use and I hope will
become much
>different than that.
As is often the case, the least intuitive and least user-friendly
interface is often one of the most efficient interfaces. Ignoring
productivity, though, as there are plenty of folks that use
operating systems that are entirely less efficient because they
think they're easier/familiar, these phases you speak of would need
to tie directly in with BRL-CAD.
You need to propose how you'd enhance BRL-CAD, not how you'd make
something that could then be used to enhance BRL-CAD. How does
your project fit in with our tools and services specifically? If
it's some general framework that you want to work on that could
just as easily be completely independent of BRL-CAD, then that
would be more like an independent study project that is outside the
realm of GSoC.
>own a MT surface. The project has been highly popular and is
available for
>both windows and Lniux. This project was my GSoC project last
summer which I
>successfully completed under the mentorship of NuiGroup (Pawel
Solyga).
Glad to hear that. Paweł is a good guy with a lot of good insights
to share.
>I have a working knowledge experince with MGED and Archer and have
already
>started looking into the code base and the libraries of BRL-CAD.
Awesome. The more you can tie your work into what we already have
and do, the better off your proposal will come across as being
directly beneficial and applicable to our community at large.
In any regard, thanks again for the interest and I look forward to
hearing more about your project and your proposal.
Cheers!
Sean
--
Cheers,
Ashish Kumar Rai
Electronics Engineering Department,
IT-BHU
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