Cool Stuff!

http://youtube.com/watch?v=d7eGypGOlOc

Holy cow - way cool!

Nice enough but I don't think its as.... whats the word... 'innovative' as that guy is saying it is.

Take away the touch-sensitive whiteboard and you've basically got a program that takes groups of lines drawn together and turns them into 2d rigid bodies. With some nice physics applied it all appears to be more cutting edge than it actually is.

aaaaaaaaaand that's awesome. next up, 3D. technology is advancing like crazy. sometimes i wonder if aliens came down to speed things up a bit.

GfK: please feel free to come up with something more impressive and useful than that.

Excellent!

It reminds me of what I had rambled about a while ago here, regarding pressure-sensitive screens and the like. Not sure where that post is, though...
This thing is really completely different, though, since it's built for accuracy and not just fun.

I wish I had a giant computer white board thing and a pile of money :(

Edit:
*GASP* Mark posted here!
He's been posting a lot lately.
...This must be a sign.

Imagine designing (admittedly 2D) game levels with that - woohoo!

Well such an application could be really nice to setup physiques into our games! Let me name it: VisualPhysics ! ^^

I agree with Gfk

One thing I'm curious about is that this program looks to be based very much on just shape recognition.

I could be wrong, but it looks like shapes such as the pendulum (did he even anchor it?) are somehow hard-coded into the system (or hopefully added via plugins).
As I said, though, I could be wrong.
I'm assuming it falls back to rigid objects like with the speed bump...

There are also some arbitrary values like mass going on, but that can't be avoided and it's fine with me since this looks like a fantastically cool bit of software :)

Combined with pressure sensitivity, this could be even more interesting. How strong/dense/bendable an object is could be determined by how hard you press, so a rope could be drawn with a very light press and a solid platform with a really strong press.

I'm sure basic physic models are hard coded (wheels, pendulums, pivots, gears). Wouldn't make sense otherwise.

Reminds me of Line Rider. Same concept.

That's awesome. This is even better than the Line Rider.

The physics application awfully looks like Working Model.

Probably would/could, if I could think of a single use for it.

That's pretty sweet. If you can't think of a use for that then your imagination is shot.

Are you talking about the 2D physics, or the construction of objects from lines?

Its obvious from the video that objects have to be drawn in a very specific way for the software to recognise them, much like you have to write in a really stupid way on PDAs for handwriting recognition to work properly. There isn't anything particularly clever about it.

Just the fact that you can draw an interactive physics simulation is cool and you could do a lot just with that. Heck, I remember drawing pictures when I was younger and adding little swoosh marks etc... to show motion. With this you could just draw the picture and then watch events unfold. Handwriting recognition has also come a long way. The DS is fairly decent at it if you ask me. Sure you'd have to draw it so the machine can interpret the strokes and parse it but so long as you are drawing correct you can make some fun stuff with that and you could do it in a visual way. It's not so much technically impressive as it is from an interface perspective. As Mark said, imagine level design with that? No dragging and dropping ... just draw stuff ... perfect

A combination out of different technologies which makes a lot of sense. Not perfect yet but nevertheless nice work!

RM SmartBoard + Cool Physics software. Awesome :)

nice, that was cool.

Looks like a variation on the line rider game...but still cool none the less...

I have to sort of side with GFK here. It's interesting and cool looking but I also am at a loss for seeing practical application here.

And as for level design ... hmm? Level design requires many more actions than simply drawing lines. Even if it was just drawing lines, this program would need to support proper grid snapping (which admittedly is trivial to add), texture application, etc.

Do you guys really see practical, real world uses here? I'd love to hear some of them because outside of academia and nerd herds I don't see this lighting a lot of fires.

Yes I definitely see a practical use for this. Even if you just took this and created the next Etcha-Sketch for kids. It could be used to educate them on drawing and physics. Level design for games would also be possible. Just imagine something like this will Grid Snapping and texture application ... or better yet shaders. You could draw your objects and then apply real world shaders to them. Create lights ala Gish and then start attaching them to pendulums and on objects with springs. Just think about the shapes you could build with what he demonstrated! I'd go nuts on that thing if I got a chance to use it.

I see useage for that in a wide range where education, learning, experimenting is involved. You can also take this away from a big screen and make it avilable on a tablet computer. Really no problem finding meaningful usage for this.

Apparently, this is the software they used ... Microsoft Magic Paper.

http://icampus.mit.edu/MagicPaper/

Err... Microsoft Physics Illustrator. Heck, you can get the source code!

Ahh thanks for the link!

Yeah, I'm downloading now to give a try on my tablet ;)

You might wanna say how it went?!

That was pretty cool. I still need to figure out all the commands but it's a slick program. The interface isn't cluttered at all. You can choose an objects properties just by highlighting it and clicking on a tab that pops up. You can make things out of brick, rubber, etc... You can choose friction and other properties. Then for gravity. You can control that by how long you draw the gravity line. A short line has little gravity and a long line has a lot. The only thing I had a hard time doing was attaching things to the backdrop like he did with the X's. I'll need to play with it more but it's certainly a fun toy. It comes with some good examples as well.

The docs are pretty good too. I'm checking that out now, apparently, they replaced the X with a Checkmark to lock things to the backdrop. That video may actually have been using some other software though ... but this does the same thing perhaps just modified.

Thanks!

Thanks for the link !!

What?! I says it can only be installed on a tablet pc?!

:D you guys will be happy to see this :
http://blog.hypercubed.com/archives/2006/02/05/how-to-use-physics-illistrator-on-non-tablet-pc/

EDIT:

Better yet download the final thing here! (It works on normal Pc's!) : http://www.filefactory.com/file/48d08c/

Heres a link to something on tabletpc.
*Clicky*

[Edit] Sorry did not se the links in other thread!

It's all nice and fancy but how did he define the mass of each object? Objects with different mass react differently. Also, where's the definition of other relevant parameters. As shown, it's cute but it's far away from real physics.

Barney

Maybe predefined per default like it takes generally standard values or it's linked to the size of an object. Would still be the same material properties but maybe you can link the object afterwards to material properties if you want more detailed settings.

I'm guessing the mass is some factor of the area of the object drawn.

Yes, you can configure any objects density, friction, and elasticity. By default all objects have a density of 1 but you can change it via a slider. The physics are pretty 'real'.

if you get a COM error, you require some components which are apparently in the tablet PC journal Viewer ( http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&familyid=fad44098-8b73-4e06-96d4-d1eb70eacb44 )