Prompt's TechBlog
Beermat vision to sober Vista in a click?
21 May 2007
Posted by Dave Wilby
Browsing New Scientist I was grabbed my one of the smaller items, which rounded-up patents applied for in the last few weeks. I suppose the 'singing golf swing' and new impact protection ideas for cars are all well and good, but what really caught my eye was a framework for a software application that promised to transform hand drawn sketches scribbled with some basic notion of perspective, into convincing 3D computer models. A brilliant piece of trickery and one that I'd definitely install on my own machine.
Being a bit geeky in my spare time as well as for a living means I often wake up after a night at the pub to find notes and scrawlings on the back of beermats, serviettes or hands reminding me how to build gadgets and things. In the past these have ranged from turning an old desk into a water-cooled PC housing to a sonic cat scarer for the garden. Sad huh?
Fortunately I'm not too sad to be a customer of Microsoft's, as this latest patent application proves. Called 'Sketching Reality' the proposed piece of software magic might just be able to turn damp drunken doodlings into usable Illustrator or Powerpoint files.
Microsoft has undoubtedly got a more sophisticated use up its sleeve but I haven't.
Yet.
Tags: patents | CAD | Microsoft | New Scientist
Being a bit geeky in my spare time as well as for a living means I often wake up after a night at the pub to find notes and scrawlings on the back of beermats, serviettes or hands reminding me how to build gadgets and things. In the past these have ranged from turning an old desk into a water-cooled PC housing to a sonic cat scarer for the garden. Sad huh?
Fortunately I'm not too sad to be a customer of Microsoft's, as this latest patent application proves. Called 'Sketching Reality' the proposed piece of software magic might just be able to turn damp drunken doodlings into usable Illustrator or Powerpoint files.
Microsoft has undoubtedly got a more sophisticated use up its sleeve but I haven't.
Yet.
Tags: patents | CAD | Microsoft | New Scientist
Labels: patents
