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

[Ton Roosendaal]

Hi Ashish,

I think Multi-touch is a great topic to work on, and indeed with 2.5 we 
have a much better basis in the code to look into that.

There's three big 'howevers' though. :)

- The 2.5 code isn't ready for this yet. It's possible, but it needs 
additional architecture-level work on the event system to make it work. 
I would rather only do that after we've validated this with a first 
(beta) 2.5 release.

- On our submission page we have a couple of requirements, of which one 
is "What would this benefit Blender users". I think the amount of users 
having access to such devices is still very low, and - afaik - nobody 
in our core developers team (or mentors) has it either, so we cannot 
verify this work.

- Several developers, also who work for companies producing such 
devices, have already expressed interest to work on it. To me it seems 
that work on device-support should first come from people who 
manufacture them. That's one of the reasons why open source works so 
well, and it doesnt require Google Summer money really.


-Ton-

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ton Roosendaal  Blender Foundation   ton at blender.org    www.blender.org
Blender Institute BV  Entrepotdok 57A  1018AD Amsterdam The Netherlands

On 28 Mar, 2009, at 22:14, Ashish Kumar Rai wrote:

> 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 and the discussions 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 ) , 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 ) 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
> _______________________________________________
> Bf-committers mailing list
> Bf-committers at blender.org
> http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers