Realtime user guidance for freehand drawing

摘要

Architecture that guides the freeform drawing of objects by a user to enable the user to produce improved drawings without significant training. As the user draws, the architecture dynamically updates a relevant shadow image proximate (e.g., underlying) the user's strokes. The strokes overlay an evolving shadow image, which shadow image is suggestive of object contours that guide the user during the drawing process. Relevant edge images selected from a large database are automatically blended to construct the shadow image. As the user draws, the strokes are dynamically analyzed using an encoding of overlapping windows for fast matching with the database of images. A top ranked set of matching database edge images are aligned to the drawing, a set of spatially varying weights blend the edge images into the shadow image, and a scoring technique is employed to select the optimum shadow image for display.

主权项

1. A system, comprising:
a processing device; and a storage device storing computer-executable instructions which, when executed by the processing device, cause the processing device to:
receive a freeform user stroke in association with an interactive surface, the freeform user stroke being input to a drawing process by a user for an evolving drawing;in response to the freeform user stroke, search for and retrieve a visual object;process the visual object to identify matching object portions which match parts of the evolving drawing;present a dynamically changing composite image of the matching object portions proximate the evolving drawing during the drawing process to guide the user to potential future strokes;receive subsequent freeform user strokes to generate an updated evolving drawing, wherein the updated evolving drawing includes the freeform user stroke and the subsequent freeform user strokes;in response to the subsequent freeform user strokes, search for and retrieve subsequent visual objects;process the subsequent visual objects to identify subsequent matching object portions which match updated parts of the updated evolving drawing;update the dynamically changing composite image with the subsequent matching object portions; andconcurrently display the updated evolving drawing and the updated dynamically changing composite image, wherein the updated evolving drawing is superimposed on the updated dynamically changing composite image to guide the user to further potential future strokes for the updated evolving drawing.