FreeDrawer – A Free-Form Sketching System on the
Responsive Workbench
Gerold Wesche
Fraunhofer Institut Max-Planck-Institut für Informatik
für Medienkommunikation IMK Computer Graphics Group
Schloss Birlinghoven Im Stadtwald
D-53754 Sankt Augustin, Germany D-66123 Saarbrücken, Germany
e-mail gerold.wesche@imk.fraunhofer.de
ABSTRACT
A sketching system for spline-based free-form surfaces on the
Responsive Workbench is presented. We propose 3D tools
for curve drawing and deformation techniques for curves
and surfaces, adapted to the needs of designers. The user
directly draws curves in the virtual environment, using a
tracked stylus as an input device. A curve network can be
formed, describing the skeleton of a virtual model. The non-
dominant hand positions and orients the model while the
dominant hand uses the editing tools. The curves and the
resulting skinning surfaces can interactively be deformed.
Keywords: Immersive Shape Modeling, Computer Aided Con-
ceptual Design, 3D Sketching, 3D Drawing, Curve and Surface
Deformations, Variational Modeling, Responsive Workbench, Vir-
tual Environments, 3D User Interfaces
1. INTRODUCTION
In product design, the visual appearance is one of the
most important aspects of the overall development process.
It has a great influence on buying decisions of customers,
who are considerably guided by their perception of shape.
It is a known fact that the shape of a product like a car or a
household appliance is an important factor that decides on
success or failure of the product. Companies invest a huge
amount of time and man-power in the shape design process
of a new product. However, development cycles tend to de-
crease, and therefore the design process has to be optimized
regarding time investment and costs.
Virtual environments (VEs), particularly projection-based
systems (PBVEs), have already proven their usefulness in
supporting the development phase. The application range
currently includes visualization tools for various fields and
steering of 3D simulations [11, 34], which are sometimes
combined with support for collaborative work. Shape visu-
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167
Hans-Peter Seidel
e-mail hpseidel@mpi-sb.mpg.de
alization of design studies on large displays is increasingly
used by the automotive industry.
In contrast to this, immersive shape modeling applica-
tions are not very common, but they are currently gaining
increasing attention. Many users recognize the capabilities
of virtual environments for creative applications, especially
in table-like setups, e.g. the Responsive Workbench [15].
Moreover, there is a high demand from the designer’s com-
munity for easy-to-use sketching tools with a simple inter-
face [5]. Most standard CAD systems lack a dedicated sup-
port for conceptual design. Instead, they provide highly so-
phisticated functionality for the elaboration phase of shape
design.
Consequently, an idea about the shape of a new product
does not directly find its way into the computer. Instead,
most design processes are characterized by very traditional
procedures, which work very well [1] but involve much time
and effort. As an example, consider design studies for a new
car’s exterior. The most important tools are paper, pencil,
and real models.
Our motivation is to offer a solution for the direct transfer
of the design intent into a corresponding computer represen-
tation. We have implemented a sketching tool adapted to
the requirements of the initial stages of the design process,
running on a Responsive Workbench. We present drawing
techniques and deformation tools for cubic B-spline curves
and for Catmull-Clark surfaces, which have been specifically
designed for use in a projection-based virtual environment.
It is not our intention to make an attempt for replacing
traditional design processes like drawing on paper or work-
ing on a clay model. However, from the designer’s point of
view, there is a clear need for a simple 3D computer aided
sketching system.
2. THE APPROACH
Most sketching approaches for VEs support one main ob-
ject class, e.g. primitives for Constructive Solid Geometry
(CSG), free-form surfaces or voxel-based virtual clay. They
have to make a compromise between the freedom that can
be made available to the designer and performance require-
ments, surface quality, or the support of representations for
further detailed elaboration.
In voxel-based virtual clay modeling by Krause and Lüd-
demann [14], the designer is totally free to generate ”mate-
rial” or take it away from the model at arbitrary locations.
The drawback is that manipulations performed in a differ-
ent direction than that of a coordinate axes can be slow or
can produce unwanted shape details. In addition, if the vi-
sualization of a smooth surface is required as a result, the
corresponding calculations can be rather slow.
In most of the surface-oriented systems for PBVEs pro-
posed so far the user acts in a very direct way. With those
tools, the designer immediately converts a shape idea of
a surface into a model using only one corresponding ges-
ture. Such a direct approach for surface sketching is “Sur-
face Drawing” by Schkolne and Schröder [22, 23]. Polygonal
surfaces are created by moving a hand, instrumented with a
glove, through space on the workbench. Stork [26] presents
a modeling system, called ”Arcade”, which is implemented
on a workbench and supports sweeping free-form surfaces,
like Coons-surfaces from just one 3D stroke.
In our modeler, we do not support direct surface draw-
ing. We believe that a surface has too many degrees of
freedom for defining all of them just with a single drawing
sweep. In our system, the designer should have some idea
in mind of how the model can be described as a skeleton, as
a network of curves, following the approaches of Sachs et al.
[21] and Kuriyama [16]. Only those primal curves have to
be created. We thus distribute the very complicated task of
modeling the whole surface shape into several, but more fea-
sible curve drawing tasks. Compared to direct techniques,
smooth spline-based surfaces with pleasant shapes can be
calculated automatically (see section 4.4) to have the ex-
pected shape intended by the surrounding primal curves.
A workshop analyzing the needs of designers in Virtual
Environments [5] identified the following guidelines for an
immersive modeler.
1. useful as a combined tool for the conceptual phase up
to a certain degree of elaboration.
2. hide the mathematical complexity of object represen-
tations,
3. direct and real time interaction,
4. full scale modeling, large working volume
5. intuitive, easy-to-learn.
Comparing our approach to virtual clay modeling [14] or
surface drawing [22, 23], the direct approaches especially
fulfill points 3 and 5, whereas we attach particular impor-
tance to points 1 and 2. With our deformation tools, we
even allow further elaboration of the initial sketch.
Using spline-based curves and surfaces already for the ini-
tial design phase in a 3D sketching system, as in our ap-
proach, involves several restrictions regarding the freedom
and the spontaneity of user actions. But it also has impor-
tant advantages, including:
• closed-form parametric representations
• easy transfer into standard CAD packages
• fast triangulation and evaluation algorithms
• infinitesimal smoothness of curves and surfaces
• efficient deformation algorithms based on variational
modeling
168
2.1 Related work
Spline-based applications
In 1976, Clark [2] built a system which used a head mounted
display (HMD) and some buttons to design bicubic patches
rendered as line-drawings. It seems to be the first modeling
application running in a VE. The first work proposing the
idea of two-handed interaction and editing curve networks,
as in our system, is “3-Draw” from Sachs et al. [21], which
is a desktop oriented system. One hand controls a tablet
while the other hand draws curves on the tablet. Both hands
are electromagnetically tracked. The system lacks surfaces,
so that only the curve network is shown. With the “Fast
Shape Designer”, van Dijk [6] developed a similar system.
They use an irregular network of NURBS curves. Only 3-
sided or 4-sided surfaces are allowed. Usoh et al. [30] define
spline-based surfaces in a HMD environment by sweeping
them out with the hand and manipulate them by simulating
deformations.
Subdivision-based applications
Kobbelt [13] presents a new method for the generation of
fair triangle meshes which are optimal with respect to a
discretized curvature energy functional. He introduces vari-
ational subdivision schemes which support the generation
and the deformation of high quality meshes. The resulting
models show fully detailed surfaces of good quality.
Particle-based applications
The “Skin” approach [18] proposes a new particle-based sur-
face representation for sculpting free-form surfaces. Users
interactively guide the particles to form triangulations with
properties that make them suitable for subdivision. Ton-
nesen [28] presents a new modeling technique, based on dy-
namically coupled particle systems, for creating and manip-
ulating complex three dimensional shapes in a fluid like man-
ner. The system has been implemented on the Responsive
Workbench. The user can sculpt a polygonal mesh based on
self organizing primitive elements.
Applications based on polygonal surfaces
The “THRED” system by Shaw, Green et al. [8, 24] de-
scribe a simple two-handed desktop free-form editor. The
user interacts with the model with both hands, which are
tracked. Dani and Gadh [4] present a desktop VR system
for design, called “COVIRDS”, by using a combination of
hand gestures, voice input, and keyboard input to create and
manipulate a 3D artifact. They have extended their work
for projection-based VR systems. The “Teddy” sketching
interface [12] allows designing free-form models quickly and
easily. From several 2D strokes, plausible polygonal surfaces
are constructed.
Other applications
“JDCAD” by Liang and Green [17] is a 3D solid modeling
and animation system. An approach which relies on picto-
graphic gestures describing superquadrics has been realized
by Nishino et al. [19] in a 3D modeling system running in a
projection wall environment.
 Figure 1: Drawing a curve
Interaction and drawing techniques
The first two-handed techniques for the Responsive Work-
bench have been introduced by Cutler et al. [3]. Zeleznik
et al. [37] describe a gesture based design system for 3D
objects. It does not yet support free-form curves or sur-
faces. W. Buxton et al. [1] contribute a styling approach
motivated by the automotive design process. They present
new applications, including digital tape drawing, that make
innovative use of large displays.
3. THE MODELER
Our modeler requires from the designer some drawing
skills - as it is the same with a piece of paper and a pencil.
It is even more demanding: Direct 3D drawing skills would
be of great value.
3.1 Drawing
We assume that an experienced drawer would be able to
sweep out virtual space curves, using large-scale gestures,
although we currently cannot prove this assumption. From
our observations so far [5] we can report that drawing a curve
in this way is a very feasible task for users with artistic skills,
but not for all users.
We support direct drawing of space curves (see Figure 1)
as well as drawing of 2D curves, projected onto a virtual
plane, since 2D drawing is a very fundamental technique.
We use this method by applying the standard cubic B-spline
interpolation method [7].
Curves can be moved and copied by dragging them with
the hand directly. They can also be mirrored. Another use-
ful technique which we provide is drawing a curve which is
forced to be symmetric to a given plane (it can be a space
curve or a curve lying in a plane). The plane of symmetry
should be perpendicular to the ”main” drawing direction to
produce useful results. We do not follow the suggesting ap-
proach of drawing only one half and reflecting it afterwards.
Instead, we provide the plane of symmetry only as an aux-
iliary means. The modeler encourages the designer to act
as a drawer and therefore the full drawing sweep should be
performed. The curve is made symmetric by averaging over
both halves afterwards.
We want to clarify that our approach is not a means to
transfer the design intent into a virtual model “automati-
169
Figure 2: Changing a curve
cally”. Attributes like easy-to-learn, as indicated by point
5 in section 2, and the ability to be operated by everybody
are often expected by users of virtual environments. For a
modeling application, this seems not to be very realistic.
Instead, we try to provide a tool, which enables designers
to use their artistic skills. We follow the principle that the
combination of special user abilities with the capabilities of
virtual environments can lead to practical systems.
3.2 Creating a curve network
In our system, curves can be drawn in space freely, but
new curves have to be woven into the existing curve network.
To achieve this, the new curve can be drawn without any
positional constraints. On the net curves to which the new
curve comes close, intersection points with the new curve
are estimated. The final curve is a close approximation to
the new curve and interpolates the intersection points. It is
created from the new curve after the drawing sweep is com-
plete, using variational methods that minimize the overall
shape deviation from the original curve.
This means that the result is not identical to the curve
initially drawn. Since we have a sketch environment, this is
a practical solution.
When drawing a new curve, the user does not need to
localize the connection points directly, the curve just has to
pass them at a distance below a threshold value.
3.3 Changing a curve of the network
If the designer is changing a curve which is already con-
nected to the network, the network must be adapted to
maintain the connectivity. We support two different modes
how this can be achieved.
In local mode, which we prefer normally, all curves inter-
secting the changed segment adapt to their new intersection
points. The range of adaptation ends at the next inter-
section points with the net, if they exist, or at the curve
end points, which remain unchanged. In Figure 2, the curve
pointed at by the tool is being deformed, while the two other
curves emanating from it are adapting locally.
In global mode, all curves of the net undergo a recursive
adaptation process, starting at the curves which intersect
the changed segment.
The adaptation has to retain the original shape details
of the curve as accurately as possible. As in the previous

Figure 3: Filling in the surfaces
section, variational methods are used. With the new net
connection points as constraints, they produce a curve which
is very similar to the original curve.
3.4 Filling in the surfaces
Our curve network can be interpreted as a skeleton to
describe the shape of an object. A surface can be created
within each closed loop of curve pieces, which can be iden-
tified by pointing at them, as shown in Figure 3, where the
found loop is highlighted. To make the process of loop find-
ing more comfortable, we implemented search algorithms
that find closed loops based on geometric criteria. One of
our methods allows to point to the location of a closed loop
in space. In most cases, the system derives the connectivity
information for the loop. Otherwise, all curve pieces of a
loop have to be selected individually.
The designer can choose between two different kinds of
surfaces. The surfaces form Kuriyama [16], who also pro-
poses curve networks, are one possible choice. His sur-
faces interpolate the boundary curves and have geometric
continuity with neighboring surfaces. Since they are con-
structed from sweeps of guide curves along their neighboring
curves, they reproduce a shape indicated by the surround-
ing curves. In addition, they can be defined over n-sided
domains, n ≥ 2, which is a very nice property to be used
with curve networks. However, this kind of surface cannot
be deformed, since it does not possess a control point rep-
resentation.
Therefore, to allow direct deformation of surfaces, we pro-
vide Catmull-Clark surfaces which are defined such that they
closely adapt to the corresponding surfaces from Kuriyama
(see 4.4).
4. CURVE AND SURFACE TOOLS
When dealing with curves and surfaces in a workbench
environment, the working situation is completely different
from that on a desktop system. Curves and surfaces ap-
pear perspectively correct, shown as stereo objects in reach
of the user’s hands and represented on a scale correspond-
ing to the work area. Furthermore, the mode of operation is
much more dynamic. It can be compared to that of a crafts-
man, who is manipulating his work piece with one hand,
while holding or turning it with the other hand to inspect
it from all sides. To adopt such work techniques for virtual
170
curves and surfaces, their complex mathematical represen-
tation should be hidden from the designer completely. We
developed deformation tools relying on familiar metaphors
[33], which are based on variational methods [9, 10, 31, 32,
35, 36] replacing the tedious task of shifting individual con-
trol points.
4.1 Curve smoothing and sharpening
The task of smoothing a curve can be realized in different
ways, globally or locally, directly or indirectly and as a result
of a minimization step. We prefer an interactive approach
to have the possibility to stop the process when desired. A
simple direct deformation technique, e.g. pushing the curve
down, could be a reasonable choice. A force feedback device
would be a desirable completion, but it involves disadvan-
tages like disturbing the stereo rendering or restricting the
work area, as stated also by Schkolne et al. [23]. Instead, we
circumvent the problem of missing force feedback by intro-
ducing an indirect smoother. It utilizes a kind of flat-iron
metaphor. The pointer is being moved along the curve until
the desired shape has been achieved. The current location
of the pointer causes the maximal effect of the smoother.
By moving the pointer back and forth, the curve is being
smoothed out gradually. Beside the region of the influence
of the pointer, the curve shape is retained. It seems to be
very easy to control the exactness of the smoothing process
in this way. Especially for larger deformations the amount
of arm movement can be reduced to pointing to the loca-
tion where the effect is intended to increase. Refer to [33]
for the definition of the energy terms used to implement the
smoother.
Optionally, the current distance of the pointer to the curve
is taken into account. A small distance causes a short smooth-
ing interval on the curve, which increases when the pointer
is moved away from the curve. The overall smoothing effect
is decreasing over time as long as the curve is active.
The curve sharpener can be interpreted as the inverse op-
eration to the curve smoother. The curve sharpener is ap-
plied in the same way as the smoother. Initial details on the
curve are elaborated as long as the button is pressed.
4.2 Curve dragging
A useful curve drag tool would allow to attract a segment
towards the pointer location directly corresponding to the
hand movement. The basic shape details of the dragged
curve should be preserved as it has been initially drawn.
The region of influence of our curve dragger can be chosen
to be narrow or wide, corresponding to a peak- or a dent-
like result. With this tool, a curve segment, fixed by its
two connection points in the curve network, can be warped
around as desired. Particularly in two-handed mode, when
the non-dominant hand is changing the orientation of the
model synchronously to the dragging operation, the curve
dragger is a very valuable tool.
Prior to the actual dragging, the interval of influence can
be defined. We simply do this by pointing at the correspond-
ing left and right locations on the curve.
4.3 Surface sculpting
It would be useful to have similar deformation tools for
surfaces. Unfortunately, much more control points are nec-
essary to define a surface. This restricts the set of tools to
those that have a constant energy matrix (see [33]). Our
interactive surface sculpting tools fulfill this requirement.
 The surface smoother and sharpener operate on the whole
surface patch. We follow the principle that the net curves
provide the shape defining information. After creating the
surface patch, it can be smoothed out until the energy min-
imum is reached or its shape can be amplified as desired.
The process of smoothing or sharpening is active as long as
the user is pressing the button. In addition to this, local de-
formations can be performed at arbitrary surface locations
(except the boundary), with a surface dragger. The shape
details at other locations are preserved. Details of how the
surface tools are implemented can be found in [33]. The
variational modeling techniques required for Catmull-Clark
surfaces are described by Qin and Terzopoulos [20, 27].
4.4 Creating surface patches
The curve network contains the initial description of shape.
The designer can polish the resulting model by deforming
the surfaces. Subdividing the curve network further by in-
serting new curves or extending it frequently occurs during
modeling. Surfaces are added or deleted all the time. There-
fore we generate a surface corresponding to each closed loop
separately rather than computing one huge surface out of
the network.
To be as flexible as possible, our curve network supports
situations of singular topology such as T-connections or mul-
tiple intersections as well as non-four-sided surface domains.
A network of curves tends to contain such domains, espe-
cially in the initial sketching stage of designing a shape [16].
The surfaces should reflect the shape given by the curves,
and they should allow further deformations. In the following
table, we list what kind of surface we fill in into a loop with
a given number l of curve pieces and how many sides n
the surface domain has. A curve piece is defined as the
curve segment between two connection points of the curve
network.
l n surface
2 4 Kuriyama
3 3 Catmull-Clark or Kuriyama
4 4 bicubic spline or Kuriyama
5 5 Catmull-Clark or Kuriyama
>5 =l Kuriyama
Table 1: Filling in n-sided patches
In situations where we fit in a spline-based surface (3, 4, or
5 boundaries), we approximate its shape to the correspond-
ing Kuriyama surface obtained from the same boundaries
by using a corresponding attracting energy functional, as
defined in [35].
We choose the subdivision level for the surfaces in such a
way that each curve piece has the same number of segments.
There must be a sufficiently large number of curve piece seg-
ments to approximate the original net curves closely. The
curve pieces are defined as uniform cubic splines, which
adapt to the original net curve pieces. The resulting uni-
form surface parametrization can lead to a high number of
control points. Nevertheless, we ensure interactivity by us-
ing an adaptive multilevel triangulation method together
with the exact evaluation algorithm at arbitrary parameter
values for Catmull-Clark surfaces proposed by Stam [25]. In
this way, we can choose the quality of surface representa-
171
Figure 4: Selecting curve tools
tion, i.e. the triangulation completely independent from the
subdivision level.
Neighboring surfaces are stitched together with C 0 - or
G1 -continuity by using a common curve piece as a bound-
ary and by linearly interpolating the cross boundary deriva-
tives along the curve piece and using them as boundary
constraints for the minimization step. If the corresponding
surrounding curves of two neighbor surfaces have at least
G1 -continuity, it is therefore transferred to the surfaces. At
points of singular topology in the curve network, only a C 0 -
connection is achieved for all common surfaces which share
that point, even if the intersecting curves have a higher order
of continuity.
5. THE USER INTERFACE
Regarding user interface design, 3D modeling is a very
difficult application field in VR. The reason for this is that
firstly, the underlying metaphors of how to create and de-
form objects have to be chosen adequately. Secondly, the
number of selectable functions can greatly increase with
growing capabilities of the application. A typical modeling
session involves changing the current tool frequently. The
user interface should support tool selections and tool tran-
sitions by providing a technique that seamlessly integrates
such system control tasks into the workflow.
We propose a new interaction style for virtual environ-
ments for supporting the manual selection of a tool with the
hand acting in vicinity to the object. It is a hand held 3D
widget, consisting of a set of virtual pointers originating at
the stylus, which are spread like the fingers of a stretched
hand, see Figure 4. Each pointer corresponds to an editing
tool, e.g. copy, move, delete, smooth, and sharpen. Simulta-
neously controlling all tools with the hand greatly facilitates
the process of selecting the desired tool. Instead of explic-
itly grabbing a virtual tool from a menu, the user touches
the object with the tip of the corresponding pointer. The
function is performed immediately afterwards by pressing
the stylus button.
6. SKETCH OF A SEAT
We now briefly describe how we sketch a model with Free-
Drawer. As an example, we use a seat. We start with draw-
ing the side lines of the left half of the seat projected as
Figure 5: The curve net (This figure is reproduced
in color on page 204.)
Figure 6: The curve net filled with the surfaces (This
figure is reproduced in color on page 204.)
2D curves onto a plane. The curve is then repositioned so
that the seat gets wider in the front. After some smoothing,
the result is mirrored to get the right half. For connecting
both sides, we draw symmetric curves in free space directly,
as described in section 3.1. The front parts are created as
space curves and carefully deformed with the smoother and
the dragger until they reach their final shape. The back-
rest, which has a uniform width, is designed in a similar
way. Now, the curve network is complete, we present it in
Figure 5.
The second step is creating the surfaces by pointing into
the loops with the stylus. The skinning surfaces already
produce a pleasant shape of the seat model (Figure 6). They
are created according to table 1. Except the head-rest, they
adopt a shape indicated by the curve pieces surrounding
them. The head-rest is chosen to be energy-minimal, which
results in a slightly reduced thickness in the middle.
In the last step we deform some of the surfaces. To make
the head-rest a little thicker, we sculpt it by applying the
surface sharpener to it (Figure 7). The whole model without
the defining curves is shown in Figure 8.
The initial sketch of the seat can now be exported into
a CAD-system for further elaboration. The whole process
172
Figure 7: Sculpting the head-rest (This figure is re-
produced in color on page 204.)
Figure 8: The final sketch (This figure is reproduced
in color on page 204.)
of sketching the model shown took the user (who has some
experience with this system) about 15 minutes. In Figures
9, 10, 11 and 12 we show the sketch of a teapot and of a boat,
created with FreeDrawer on the Responsive Workbench.
7. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK
We presented FreeDrawer, a new sketching system for
the Responsive Workbench, which tries to make the ad-
vantages of such virtual environments usable for designers.
Models consisting of spline-based free-form surfaces are cre-
ated by drawing and connecting the primal curves. This
approach allows to exploit all 6 degrees of freedom when
sketching curves, and it frees the designer from specifying all
the surface parameters by precomputing reasonable starting
shapes, which can be further deformed.
The lack of force feedback and therefore the deficiency
of constraints while drawing is one problem for immersive
modeling applications. However, a force feedback device
can seriously restrict the working volume for the hand, one
of the most important advantages of virtual modeling envi-
ronments.
Curve deformation techniques relying on familiar meta-
phors were presented, which are adapted to table-like envi-
 Figure 9: Curve network for a teapot
Figure 10: Sketch of a teapot (This figure is repro-
duced in color on page 204.)
ronments and even reasonably work without force feedback.
The surface deformation tools are similar, but are restricted
to ensure interactivity.
Since spline-based curves and surfaces are used, the model
can be converted into file formats expected by standard
CAD packages. This feature has to be implemented in a
future version of the modeler.
The proposed techniques have to be evaluated by a user-
test to show their usefulness. Future work on the Free-
Drawer will be concentrated on 3D user interface design. A
solution to the problem of tool selection has been proposed
in this work.
The field of immersive modeling and conceptual design
will gain more relevance due to the demand to increase the
efficiency of product development processes.
Acknowledgements
Our student M. Droske implemented the framework for vari-
ational methods for curves and other important tools. Many
thanks also to our colleague I. Nikitin who programmed one
of the user controlled loop selection methods by directly
pointing at the loop in space. We also thank M. Göbel
and M. Reiser who support this work and made it possible.
B. Fröhlich implemented general tools for 3D interaction,
173
Figure 11: Curve network for a boat
Figure 12: Sketch of a boat (This figure is repro-
duced in color on page 204.)
which are used in the modeler. Many colleagues in our group
are involved in the development of the AVANGO framework
[29], on top of which the application described here has been
realized.
This work has been funded by the DFG, Deutsche For-
schungsgemeinschaft.
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