Category: Concepts

I feel uncomfortable with traditional click-n-drag visual editors, whatever it is a pixel-based editing in Photoshop or 3D editing in Tinkercad.

I’m spending time editing something, but comparing to development, result is very “fragile” and depends on exact sequence of pre-planned events and relies on precise drag-and-drop capabilities and heavy use of undo even with years of mouse handling skills.

The gap is currently addressed by OpenSCAD, a language that allows you to generate 3D models so they can be parametrized and can power tools like Thingiverse Customizer so you can make adjustable prosthetics for kids who grow up (and dimensions need to adjust).

I feel that ultimate solution in this very creatively imaginative and visual space heavily mixed with scientific and precise engineering is in combining the two in Bret Victor-esque way (here’s a video in which he talks about his approach and shows some game development tool prototypes which influenced or directly contributed to Swift Playgrounds, if I understand it correctly):

Imagine editing using visual editor on the right of the screen, adding and removing objects, moving them around, intersecting and so on like you would in Tinkercad, but on the left, seeing the code as it changes with every change you make.

For example, you drag the object and coordinates in the code change, or you press a button to combine one object with another and it starts a function and puts first object as first parameter, waiting for you to pick second object.

Needless to say, if you edit the code, visual editor would also update to reflect the changes. And if you point at a number in the code and drag up down, it updates the code and corresponding visual at the same time

This can be combined with timeline feature similar to the one Fusion 360 has:

but in our case as it works with code, it would not only roll-back/replay visual objects, but will also visually represent OpenSCAD commands highlighting corresponding part of the code when you click or hover over a step. It can also act as version control for the code too (imagine branching, merging and pull-request workflow of git integrated with it).

Just though I’d share before it goes into non-being.

When I first visited ITP show back in 2005 or so, I realized that I am interested in physical computing and when going home from the show I came up with the idea of a project with ITP spirit – a window into a virtual world.

The idea was to use a notebook or a tablet PC with a compass and gyroscope contraption attached to it to browse 360 degree panoramas so the viewport of the panorama matches the direction of the screen. This way moving the viewport, user will be able to see the “virtual world on the other side of the portal”.

You can guess why I’m writing about this concept right now – because I couldn’t imagine back then that device like that would be available to consumers. And now I’m using it to type this post, yes, I’m talking about Apple iPad ;)

So, getting back to the concept – now there is no need for custom hardware which I was thinking is necessary 5 years ago and all is needed now is an iPad application.

OpenGL sphere with 360 panorama mapped to it as a texture plus some (probably sophisticated) logic to make device scroll the panorama based on accelerometers and compass.

Combine it with some sci-fi panoramas or with some real-estate panoramas and you have a cool product that blows peoples mind and gets all the blogging attention you need to make a first million in the app store.

Another app for real estate brokers that can go along with this one is panorama maker – just point you camera around the room (maybe in video mode) and augmented with direction and tilt data it can help automate panorama creation which broker (or “for sale by owner” enthusiast) just uploads to property’s site.

All that is a bit optimistic, obviously, as panorama creation uses some hardcore math and requires significant image processing and often manual involvement, but it can definitely be aided by dimensional data.

Let me know if anything like that already exists or if you’re interested to give it a try – I’d pay for such app for sure! Can do that in advance using kickstarter.com if you like ;)

Comments are always welcome! And don’t try to be easy on my feelings, tell me what wrong here ;)