I'm enjoying an exciting presentation by the whimsically-named Magic Paper project at MIT. This is a very clever sketching tool, which lets users very, very easily draw 2d objects, and animate them. No coding, almost no menus, just stylus dragging. It's a bold idea, trying to reduce interface "thickness."
The computational work is fascinating. The team figured out all sorts of tricks, like how to snap-to-grid freehand drawings (we draw vertexes more slowly than straight lines) and how to use shapes to overcome stylistic line variations and nonchronologial drawing.
Discussion is a treat, touching on Scott McCloud's icon theory, Gestalt theory.
Microsoft Research was impressed by this, and whipped out Physics Illustrator.
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