Section: New Software and Platforms

Esquisse

Keywords: Vector graphics - 3D interaction - Human Computer Interaction

Scientific Description: Trace figures are contour drawings of people and objects that capture the essence of scenes without the visual noise of photos or other visual representations. Their focus and clarity make them ideal representations to illustrate designs or interaction techniques. In practice, creating those figures is a tedious task requiring advanced skills, even when creating the figures by tracing outlines based on photos. To mediate the process of creating trace figures, we introduce the open-source tool Esquisse. Informed by our taxonomy of 124 trace figures, Esquisse provides an innovative 3D model staging workflow, with specific interaction techniques that facilitate 3D staging through kinematic manipulation, anchor points and posture tracking. Our rendering algorithm (including stroboscopic rendering effects) creates vector-based trace figures of 3D scenes. We validated Esquisse with an experiment where participants created trace figures illustrating interaction techniques, and results show that participants quickly managed to use and appropriate the tool.

Functional Description: Esquisse is an add-on for Blender that can be used to rapidly produce trace figures. It relies on a 3D model staging workflow, with specific interaction techniques that facilitate the staging through kinematic manipulation, anchor points and posture tracking. Staged 3D scenes can be exported to SVG thanks to Esquisse's dedicated rendering algorithm.

News Of The Year: First version of Esquisse, implementing both staging and vector rendering.

• Contact: Sylvain Malacria

• Publication: Esquisse: Using 3D Models Staging to Facilitate the Creation of Vector-based Trace Figures

• URL: https://github.com/LokiResearch/Esquisse