What is Digg?89 Comments
- slapjack, on 10/12/2007, -3/+76I think you underestimate how difficult it is to do something like this. Complaining about 2-d is selling this concept short. Just about all projects of this nature, especially projects that innovate on old ideas, have to crawl before they walk and walk before they run.
Following your line of thinking, this is like complaining in 1991 that Windows 3.1 is disappointing because it doesn't have the Aero display layer. - bmcnally, on 10/12/2007, -4/+59I actually sell the software that he is using. It's Working Model 2D, a software package that is widely used in industry and research for those who cannot afford the pricier software packages. The fact that it is "only" 2D is inconsequential since 1) it is not used to develop full scale objects (though it can be) but rather individual parts (eg landing gear, pistons, cams, etc), and 2) everything is 2D when it is laid on a plane, it's only a matter of properly orientating your widget on the screen to produce the results you need.
This isn't some software used to design computer games in 3D; this is powerful simulation software that companies use for stress analysis and motion tracking. If you're in an engineering university, there's a good chance that the engineering computer labs carry this software.
Demos are available from the company website at http://www.design-simulation.com/ - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -9/+47I think money is the least of your problems. Try using spell check.
- tizz66, on 10/12/2007, -0/+36We need to e-mail this to Nintendo and get it as a DS game! It's kinda similar in concept to that sled game that was on digg last week.
Dugg! - BadassCheese, on 10/12/2007, -4/+24Microsoft made a better thing than this years ago for TabletPCs.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=56347faf-a639-4f3b-9b87-1487fd4b5a53&displaylang=en - ayeroxor, on 10/12/2007, -3/+18"Simple amazing!"
Actually, this probably falls in the category of "difficult amazing".
/Simply? - MrSidnet, on 10/12/2007, -0/+13Someone wanna port this over to some DS homebrew?
- robystar, on 10/12/2007, -0/+13Cool. This seems to be an intergration of 2 existing peices of software...Working Model and Smart Board. The innovation here is the sketch-to-model feature.
- DavisMIT, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13As that's me in the movie, I'm in the position to add a little background to the story.
1) The movie may have been discovered by Youtube recently, but it's about 5 years old, made as a very early demonstration of our research.
2) As for the comment that "Microsoft made a better thing than this years ago for TabletPCs", well, yes and no. The yes part: the Physics Illustrator MS (a powertoy for Tablet PCs) was in fact a re-implementation of our code, done by working closely with us to understand what we had done, adding a much cleaner user-interface. (We created research code, not a commercial system.) Check the About acknowledgments on the MS code. And yes, the work was later supported by Microsoft: (http://icampus.mit.edu/MagicPaper/).
The "no" part: while PI's interface is professional-quality, the sketching you can do with it is more restricted than what our code can do. Among other things, PI requires objects be drawn with a single stroke, which our code does not.
3) The animation is indeed courtesy of WorkingModel 2D. Our research is in understanding freehand sketching, not physical simulation. Once the sketch is understood, a script is sent to WorkingModel to have it run the simulation. Our work is focused on creating sketch-enabled interaction, and we have done this with a variety of different back-end programs over the years. See http://rationale.csail.mit.edu/publications.shtml - t0ny, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13http://blog.hypercubed.com/archives/2006/02/05/how-to-use-physics-illistrator-on-non-tablet-pc/
You can compile it yourself and run it on non tablet :) - amonroy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9I think the Microsoft software and the MIT video are the same thing. If you install it you will see the credits. Also http://icampus.mit.edu/MagicPaper/
- jarod51, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8Checkt out Flade :) http://www.cove.org/flade/
- warmonger48, on 10/12/2007, -6/+14Whoops...I blame public schools...
- bmcnally, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7@Yoshi
Normally what the software does is use predefined settings (eg, gravity = 9.81 m/s^2, no air resistance, no coefficient of friction, etc) when the user draws in shapes and runs a simulation. To change these defaults, it is normally just the simple manner of changing world defaults (through a top menu) or double-clicking on an object and editing its information sheet. Preset information sheets for different materials are all easily accessed, so you can design a steel building that sits on ice (for example).
Very intuitive controls let you set angles, friction coefficients, spring constants, etc. Equations can be used to make these values vary with time, or with the force applied.
You don't have to draw everything on the screen, like what is being shown here! - holiday, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Don't forget... It's not that this would be a useful tool to teach the students at MIT Physics, but that the students of MIT design these types of applications for others to learn and use...
- noahhoward, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5How so? Even in calc-based Physics we did two dimensional dynamics models. Hell, this would be more useful in a university, it could also be used with engineerig there's a whole class devoted to thing that this system would represent. This is a hell of a lot more useful than a marker-drawn static image of a dynamic system.
- theone3, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5"not everyone has to cater to windows."
They do if they want real money. Or users. - samdu, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Every once in a while you see an application that makes your jaw drop and you think, "WOW, computers are SO cool!!!" This is one of those applications. Man, that's cool!
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6it's like Line Rider on steroids!
http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/40255643/ - DavisMIT, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5and
4) The program being demo'd was called ASSIST; it was the Master's Thesis of Christine Alvarado. - skinwill, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Ok, first off, I LOVE THIS.
Second, you could have predicted the reactions:
Someone else did something similar...
Can I get it on Linux?
Its not that hard to do...
Come on people, this is very cool. Admit it! - kingfoot, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5nevermind, here for the source http://research.microsoft.com/research/downloads/Details%5Caeee3085-a219-47d6-88fc-a2501f00800d%5CDetails.aspx?CategoryID=
its one of the links - karn, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4This is really neat, i'm definitely going to have to show this to my physics prof.
I'm wondering if the program will do a print out of the forces acting on the objects, or if its possible to set very exact criteria on the objects your drawing. - tominator1983, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5The Microsoft Physics Illustrator only runs on a tablet PC (how stupid is that?).
Someone went and re-compiled the source code to run on normal computers. The link is here if you want to download it:
http://www.filefactory.com/file/48d08c/ - Yoshi39, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5They say that it is just an early example in the video. One thing that bothers me is you need to be able to control the weight of the cart, the angles, the gravitational force, the springiness of the springs etc so unless the figure out a really smart GUI this is going to get allot more cluttered and allot less intuitive.
- venir, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6In my architecture class in High School, we got a Smart Board my last semester there. Very cool. We only had time to play around with it a little bit, but on the last day, my teacher let us bring in some games to play on it. Turns out not to work very well for gaming.
- mzwaterski, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Microsoft's research web server is crawling already...
- pseudoheld, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4has somebody got a compiled version i cant work VSB
- tizz66, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3You realise that the cool thing isn't the drawing-on-the-wall, but the physics simulation (well, the two technologies together actually). You've been able to get interactive whiteboards for years which let you draw on a projection.
- emanggid, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6
My alumni University of Arkansas Walton College of Business had "Smart Boards" which are probably the exact same thing as this-- the software if just cool.
The Smart boards are amazing though, and great. It's just a huge projected computer screen and you can draw as well as touch to use the mouse. Cool stuff.
Good ol' Walmart money bought us those toys! - t0ny, on 10/12/2007, -4/+7Only tablet?
Any one else know of something like that for Linux? Or runnable under wine? - JackHallows, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Also sodaconstructor.
http://www.sodaplay.com/constructor - theone3, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Yep, it's definately magic paper. Here's the MIT page on it. Note they use the EXACT SAME example.
http://icampus.mit.edu/MagicPaper/ - diggcamr, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2The software used was not Smart Board but in fact a combination of:
(a) Working Model 2D v. 2005 [motion simulation/physics portion],
(b) Mimio Whiteboard Capture System by Virtual Ink [hardware capture of marker/whiteboard input], and
(c) ASSIST sketch understanding system pioneered by MIT Professor Randall Davis [software that recognizes handwriting and converts it into commands recognizable by a host of applications such as Working Model 2D v. 2005]
Although the above was almost all discussed above, this may be nice to see those comments all distilled down to one easy to read snippet. - JackHallows, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Dammit, digg's comments are screwy.
Anyway there was 2 more I wanted to add that are like it where you can control a vehicle and create environments:
http://www.eigelb.at/HP/Frontend/PHP/Seite.php?sID=39&lID=46&iFrame=1&lng=2&lID_list=46
Click on "vehicle" and "federspiel beta" in games - mr.hostility, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2My niece has this in her 6th grade class room. Pretty cool.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2holy crappola batman, i didn't think i'd get so many nega-diggs for my original comment.
- i never said it wasn't impressive and a difficult thing to implement!
-I didn't realize this video is five year's old (check out DavisMIT's post below. and @DavisMIT: sorry!) for then, this is quite a bit more impressive
-I didn't realize that you could control things like weight, etc. which makes it FAR more useful.
I'm still a bit skeptical of it's gesture analysis, especially the "pinning" actions with the axles, can the gestures be over-ridden and explicitly defined? - mrpizza, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2yeah weve got those boards here too....
Tho I dont understand how you would play halo on it....it would be uncomfortable and you wouldnt be able to reach the entire screen well....so thats BS...
pretty pointless for games imo, tho we tried Hangman and it worked pretty well :) - woz_fraggle, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3http://www.design-simulation.com/WM2D/download.php
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2The program is real neat. In my highschool engineering class (technical high school) we had the same program. We didn't have the smart board wrapper though. We had to make it with the built in tools.
- Elxx, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1My school has the Smart Boards as well. The one thing I hate about them is the fact that more than one person can't be writing at one time. Which limits the fun factor when you're messing around.
- s6t9eve, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1They could just usee line rider, it would save them alot of work!
- Jimks13, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1It's cool that they've integrated Working Model with the smart board device, but I think it would be faster just to work within the software on the computer and display it on the board. It's taking him too long to long to draw the shapes and if the instructor wants to add more complexity, then it will really slow him down. It seems to only make sense for very simple demonstrations. On another note, if you think that Working Model 2-D is cool, you should check out Working Model 3-D.
- fodder0, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1thats nothing special at all.... i thought all schools had that.
- zecreven, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I think the important here is the idea..not how to make it. I don't think so that there so many people who will come up with this idea..
- bairy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1No idea why you got dugg down for that. It's good to have a play with.
- kevgig, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1coolest thing I have seen in a long time! I wish I could go to MIT someday :(
- chuckayoub, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1A longer version of the video:
http://www.maniacworld.com/MIT-Sketching.html - tizz66, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2It'd be good if there was a way to import proper drawings to it, mark which pieces are static etc., then have it simulate the physics.
- igraham09, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@junkmail
my thoughts exactly... IT WANTS IT WANTS!!! -
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