[Bf-committers] Multi-Touch Based User Interface for Blender

[Ashish Kumar Rai]

Respected Sir,

I am a GSoC enthusiast and I would like to work on the development of a
Multi-touch based User Interface for Blender.

Multi-touch denotes a set of interaction techniques which allow computer
users to control graphical applications with several fingers. The
multi-touch technology is in a development stage and offers immense
opportunities - both technical and economical. It will help in putting
computers to a variety of new applications and open up new kinds of avenues.
The technology heralds a new ear in the way we interact with computers. It
provides the users a more natural way of interaction with computers.


I feel that Multi-touch has started to show that it will be the
next-big-thing in the field of User Interface.

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.

With the coming of Blender
2.5<http://www.blender.org/news/article/blender-25-progress/>and the
discussions <http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=97197> at the
forum, I feel a multi-touch based user-interface for blender is imminent.

As the UI model for Blender 2.5 is based on MVC ( "Model, View, Controller"
) which proposes to strictly separate code for "Model" (the data) from
"View" (the interface, visualizations) and from "Controller" (the operations
on data). ( MVC
-Wikipedia<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model-view-controller>) , this
will greatly help in the implementation of methods for using
multi-touch devices with Blender.

The multi-touch device can be exposed as a blender sensor and several
Blender objects can have a muti-touch sensor and thus can receive the same
events. The touch events can be sent to a gesture recognition module so that
complex gestures can also be used for effectively using the multi-touch
user-interface besides preliminary gestures like navigation by single touch,
zooming , roatation etc.The Blender sensors will be connected to a
controller which when triggered by an event will then by using the generic
data and tools api will do the required operation.

Using an ANN based gesture recognition module will let the user customize
and train their interactive-surface to do the fucntions as required on a
particular gesture.

References :
The following projects can be very helpful in completing the project and
saving time -

   1. http://grafitiproject.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/grafiti.pdf
   2. http://code.google.com/p/sparsh-ui/
   3. http://forge.lifl.fr/PIRVI/wiki/MTUtils/blenderTUIO



I am very much hopeful that intelligent multi-touch surfaces will start
replacing  desktops and laptops that we see as shown very much in hollywood
movies and to some extent in high profiles labs and military installations.
[ commandline will however exist too :) ]  I have been working with MT stuff
for over one-and-half years and have developed one of my own FTIR based
setup (  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wp8SpXfChkY )  and currently
developing a laser based planar MT surface. On the software side I have also
build a simulator ( QMTSIM <http://code.google.com/p/qmtsim/> ) for fast and
efficient development of Multi-Touch software even if you dont own a MT
surface.


I am looking forward for a positive reply from your side and I feel that you
will make me conversant about my prospects for  this project under your
guidance. I am hoping to make a full proposal with a time line and the
deliverables  and start working if you think that this could be a viable
GSoC project.

Waiting for your comments and suggestions eagerly !!

-- 
Cheers,

Ashish Kumar Rai
Electronics Engineering Department,
IT-BHU
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