Graphics Reference
In-Depth Information
A bicycle for our imagination
In a 1990 interview on public television, Steve Jobs described computers as
“the most remarkable tool that we've ever come up with. It's the equivalent of
a bicycle for our minds.” His point was that if given technology to boost basic
human capacities, humans can dramatically extend the limits of what they are
capable of. Unfortunately, for most of us, design software has not yet become
a bicycle for our imaginations.
Imagine this future scenario: a nine-year old girl gestures in the air. On a
nearby screen, a design slowly takes shape. On the girl's ingers are small stick-
ers that have sensors that wirelessly convey information to the design software.
The software receives the sensor data and interprets the girl's motions as she
smooths, selects and pinches her onscreen object into the right form without
ever touching a keyboard or mouse. The computer understands her intentions
and, like a master artisan, grows the design into its perfect inal form.
If only design software were this easy to use. To fully unlock the power
of 3D printing technologies for everybody, design tools must become more
intuitive to learn, more fun to use, and more capable. One promising
approach is to make design software that looks and acts like a video game.
Gamifying CAD
Several months ago I received an e-mail from Eric Haines, a veteran software
developer who studied computer graphics as a master's student and has had
a long career at Autodesk. Eric thought I might be interested in a new online
world called
Minecraft.
“You could describe
Minecraft
as an 8-bit vision of
the future of design for 3D printing,” Eric told me. “Millions of people play
Minecraft
. It's adult LEGOs.”
The reason Eric had contacted me was because he thought I might be inter-
ested in
Mineways
, a software tool he created.
Mineways
is an open source (and free of charge) software tool that enables
people to edit, then 3D print what they've designed in
Minecraft
. Eric devel-
oped
Mineways
when he realized the rich virtual worlds people were building
online in
Minecraft
were begging to be materialized in physical form. Eric
wrote
Mineways
in 45 days in his spare time and gifted the software to the
world on Christmas Eve, 2011. Since then,
Mineways
has been downloaded
more than 50,000 times.
