Gallery

Violin Yanev
Gerhard Schubert
Marcus Tönnis
Frank Petzold
Gudrun Klinker

Abstract
Sketching is a prominent tool in the workflow of architects and engineers, which is used to draft and exchange ideas with others. Sketches are very common in early stages of the product design, but they don’t permit performing digital simulations and analysis on the model.
This research project investigates existing methods for 3-D reconstruction out of raw, inaccurate, and possibly incomplete hand drawings. The goal of the project is to find a procedure for fast approximation which requires a few or no additional user interventions. The reconstructed 3-D shape should retain its roughness and stay as close as possible to the original sketch.

Motivation
Sketching by hand is commonly used in the early stages of product design. Even later in model development, when more refined and precise reproduction is assembled, sketching is a frequently used tool for exploration and exchange of new ideas.
There is a lot of research in the area of 3-D reconstruction from sketch drawings. A few even achieved plausible results. Unfortunately, most of them perform the reconstruction not fast enough for the needs of rapid prototyping. The time required to reconstruct the 3-D image ranges from few tenths to several thousands seconds, depending on the complexity of the shape and the used algorithm. Forcing the designer to wait for the 3-D reconstruction could distract him from the actual design process and disrupt his flow of ideas.