Drawing in 3D
3D Drawing System.
"Quest (1935)", Claude Heath 2005
At the School of Computing, University of Leeds, a system for drawing in space was implemented by Ben Hammett in his final year undergraduate project in 2004–5. An illustration of the set-up appears on the left. It uses a ‘Flock of Birds’ magnetic tracking system from Ascension Technology.
The artist works within a volume, roughly a 2m cube. A magnetic field pervades the volume, and a drawing instrument with various buttons is linked by a cable to the tracking system. The position of the drawing instrument in space is detected by sensing the magnetic field and the trajectories of the drawing instrument held in the artist’s hand are represented in a virtual space on the computer. These trajectories are displayed in a visual representation of the virtual space (which is imagined as corresponding to the physical space within which the artist moves).
The display is capable of creating a three-dimensional illusion when the appropriate stereo glasses are used. It is possible to disable the stereo effect to see a straightforward two-dimensional rendering of the model in virtual space. Lines may have a variety of colours and thicknesses, and the model can be rotated in virtual space about a vertical axis.
As part of the Spatiality in Design project, two artists Claude Heath and Patricia Cain experimented with the system. One of Claude Heath's images, "Quest (1935)" is shown here. To appreciate the 3D nature of the drawings you really need to see them in 3D - you can download a VRML version of a drawing by John Stell from a separate page.
