Modeling with Gestures: the 3D Sketchmaker

The 3D SketchMaker Project has developed two prototypes for a gestural 3D sketching system to be used in the earliest phases of the design process. The goal of this ongoing research is to provide architects, and other designers involved in object conception, with a 3D gestural instrument that takes advantage of new virtual reality resources and is more naturalthan using the mouse, less difficult than learning complex software and less abstract than manipulating 2D entities on orthogonal projections. The focus of this project is on the input interface, taking into consideration two factors: First, for many architects and designers, one of the main reasons for not using 3D modelling from the very beginning of the design process is that both current hardware and software are hardly appropriate to do the spontaneous and quick drawings that are used to assist in conceptualizing their objects