Our very own Dr. Hammond led an IUI workshop concerning sketch recognition. Sketch recognition is concerned with determining what a user intended to draw without forcing the user to draw within certain style constraints. It combines the intuitive pen and paper drawing actions with artificial intelligence, algorithms, and touch technology (including multi-touch and tablets).
Dr. Hammond stresses that sketch recognition is important to, and applicable in, the areas of education, design, and computer-human interaction. Diagrams serve as pivotal learning tools, and many disciplines use them to express key points that cannot be explained with words alone. In terms of design, hand drawing allows users to make improvements instead of becoming fixated on a computerized solution. Finally, Dr. Hammond discusses CAD (Computer-Aided Design) systems and how they can be supplemented with sketch recognition to save users time when drawing and testing their designs.
The last part of the paper deals with workshop that she led on sketch recognition. Dr. Hammond hosted a sketch recognition contest at IUI 2009 in order to better demonstrate her research advancements.
Discussion:
Sketch recognition sounds pretty cool (and not just because Hammond is our professor!). The idea that someone can quickly jot down a diagram that the computer can translate into something functional (or at least legible) is of great benefit to just about anyone who would ever use a diagram or drawing. Testing a student's comprehension of a function or algorithm that is presented as a diagram could be done naturally with their own diagram instead of contrived questions or by labeling parts. Never again would I have to scan in a bunch of papers just so I can share figures with people! Anything that makes communication more natural such as sketch recognition is a good thing.
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