This award provides funding to develop a new class of design scenarios, interaction and manipulation paradigms for design using sketching in 2D and natural gestures enabled by affordable depth sensing cameras. These natural interactions will transform human gestures to tangible shapes. Gestures will also be developed for 2D and 3D interaction with the created shapes. This natural gesture-based interaction paradigm will enable exploratory processes typical during brainstorming and support creative design exploration for sketching in 2D on real world surfaces, physical world to virtual transformation of 3D objects, and assembly with no training. A computational foundation and algorithms for accurate creation of sketches and manipulation using gestures in 2D will be developed while exploring design scenarios using virtual construction kit ideas and design assembly scenarios. We will develop a theory and scientific basis for Human-Computer-Human Interaction and architectural framework for design collaboration.
Since the natural expression of shapes is the essence of creativity and visual thinking, it will be useful in design processes, especially in early stages. The new design concepts, methods and tools to support transformative design thinking will create new affordances for designs and if successful transform early design processes. This award will also introduce effective design learning in workshops to assist K-12 STEM education. Over the long term, the research, education, and dissemination efforts for natural design in 2D and 3D will enhance the creative design capacity. It would also enable any common person, including those that are young, to communicate and prototype design ideas directly in 3D space that have potential to fundamentally alter design paradigms.
