“Sketch-based Modeling of Parameterized Objects”

Sketch-based modeling holds the promise of making 3D modeling accessible to a significantly wider audience than current modeling tools. We present a modeling system that is capable of constructing 3D models of particular object classes from 2D sketches. The core of the system is a sketch recognition algorithm that seeks to match the points and curves of a set of given 2D templates to the sketch. The matching process employs an optimization metric based on curve feature vectors, and the search space of possible correspondences is restricted by encoding knowledge about relative locations of object parts into the 2D template. Once a best-fit template is found, a 3D object is constructed using a series of measurements that are extracted from the labelled 2D sketch. We apply our sketch- recognition and modeling algorithms to sketches of cups and mugs, airplanes, and fish. The system allows non-experts to quickly create 3D models of specific object classes from sketches or by tracing over photographs.
Previous sketch-based methods such as Teddy[Igarashi et al. 1999] use a vocabulary of gestural pen strokes to incrementally develop the shape of the 3D object. In contrast, our sketch-based system works directly from a drawing of the final object, at the expense of requiring a priori domain knowledge.

Igarashi, T., Matsuoka, S., And Tanaka, H. 1999. Teddy: a sketching interface for 3d freeform design. In SIGGRAPH ’99, ACM Press/Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., 409–416.