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Showing posts with the label gsoc india

Hard hard user interfaces.

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Started as someone doing ActionScript in Macromedia Flash I got into Human-Computer-Interaction after watching Jeff's Hann's multi-touch work. That's the power of a really cool demo that inspired the birth of NUIGroup community which spawned 1000s of makers all around the world making their own projector camera multitouch systems. All of it became mainstream once Apple released the iPhone to the world, and also gave birth to my interest in human-centered engineering. I spent some 10 years after that playing with sensors, haptics, and gestural interfaces through multiple input modalities but nothing stuck as much as multi-touch did. Thanks to Apple's execution. Everyone's phone/tablet interaction is default multitouch. (unless you have a visual impairment). Primsense evolved into Kinect, then came Wiimote, Leap but nothing stuck.  for speech, it was Amazon's Alexa. Latest news , that its going to lose Amazon 10B.  Like I am writing this post through my keyboard a...
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Gestures Plan

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My thoughts were triggered after I read the Bill Buxton argument . We must focus on streamlining the interaction. by number of gestures minimum , using them only when they're required and naturally usable .-> Simpler and better SketchUp design and modeling experience. This implies that we should using Multitouch in only one thing-> Camera motions in Sketchup i.e. Zoom, PAN and Orbit There are two modes I am thinking about- MODE 1 Camera= Initialized using a Button1 from a new SketchUp MT Toolbar 1. Zoom -Drag apart two fingers/MT cursors 2. Orbit- Keep two fingers constant and move third vertically to the axis of the two. X X O ^ 3. Pan- Drag in any direction with single finger O-> MODE 2 Drawing= Initalized using Button2 from SketchUp MT toolbar - SketchUp ' s drawing interface is meant to be exploited using single touch(mouse) so we plan not messing around with that - Therefore we're drawing with the help of mouse emulation and it...
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Let's begin with what all I tried at my end that didn't work . 1. Direct Implementation of Ruby Client within Sketchup - Didn't work due to the Ruby API's limitation under SketchUp. 2. pyGE_touch - Tried to hack around Win32COM interface to make SketchUp respond to pyGE like script. Didn't workout just because we don't have a COM interface in SketchUp's API. 3. Using the SKSocket class - Though it showed some initial success the if the SKSocket was buffering and finally flushed the data all at once, this wasn't the best of experiences. As per the blogpost on http://touchaddict.blogspot. com/2009/06/some-changes-to- strategy.html its explianed how it worked for a while- gave me a lot of hope, but eventually failed. That's what finally gave some hope to move on. 4. Finally since the time was short, we thought of an option(with Colin) that we could connect TUIO to SketchUp using a Text file logger . got some success in getting this done. Although ...
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Precoding updates

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1. Code Repository setup at Google Code 2. Recently I tried out Colin Harris's Ruby TUIO client from , it took me a little longer time (more than expected) to figure out if its working since I was using Adobe Air based SimTouch.air and socketserver executable to do my tests- which didnt work with our Ruby Client. Though later it responded perfectly with ReactiVision TUIO Simulator 1.4 . I could print the TUIO messages :-) 3. Yet to figure out how we're going to implement the Ruby Client within GoogleSU's interface, I am doing my experiments around Google SU right now. Since I am a bit n00bish with the Ruby API's application with networking, for now not very sure how it'll be loaded INTO the GoogleSketchUp , though i've to try :-) 4. For now I am wondering if we should really go on and apply multitouch to drawing in Google SketchUp , since Sketchup alredy allows to draw using Single Touch. Ofcourse the Multitouch gestures can be technically implemented here,...
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Google SoC: I am in :)

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After falcon4ever and tito's hint I was keeping my fingers crossed. Phew ! at 12:30 AM IST 22 April dot, the results for Google Summer of Code -2009 were announced. Sudhanshu broke me the news on call, I was in ! It was one of the best moments of my life- the feeling within was a mix of several emotions- The mood was upbeat, yet I had in mind the upcoming summer ahead. Being selected is just the beginning, the real groundwork starts now. I proposed my own idea " A Multitouch extension Module for Google SketchUp" . Its going to be mentored by Pawel Solyga . I hope to make it something that Google SketchUp lovers would love to see on their Multitouch tables. Its a challenge ahead , and I am looking forward to it. So summer 2009 - Lotsa hacking and Ruby Programming. As many as three students were selected from my college. Shreekant and Abhinav made it to Sahana and XIPH respectively. And yeah Mangalore ! Sharath Patali for the good NUIPaint was also in. Great to see a good ...
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Proposed an idea for GSoC 2009

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Proposed an Idea for Google Summer of Code to port Google SketchUp to Multitouch . Users would be able to do 3D modeling with Simple and intuitive gestures. An Extension Module that would allow Google SketchUp to receive TUIO and hence allow manipulations via Multitouch gestures. Abstract Lack of a CAD software that could be used via Multitouch has been the motivating factor behind this proposal. Eversince I used the Sketches application on iPhone –which enables 2D drawing using Multitouch, I felt like doing something similar on my FTIR setup. Adding multitouch ability to an easy to use CAD/modeling software - Google SketchUp would not only make the design process intuitive but also add a lot to the usability factor. The reason behind choosing Google SketchUp and not start developing something from scratch is due to its easy to start UI. By experience I’ve felt that Google SketchUp is one of the easiest and widely used surface modeling tools around- what’s impressive about it - its pat...
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