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Kitty

Kitty is a sketch-based tool for authoring dynamic and interactive illustrations. Artists can sketch animated drawings and textures to convey the living phenomena, and specify the functional relationship between its entities to characterize the dynamic behavior of systems and environments.

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User Interface Research

Overview

Kitty is a research prototype enabling the creation of dynamic (interactive, animated and responsive) illustrations with a fluid sketch-based interface. This children book illustration captures the dynamics of the scene and changes as a child interacts with it. Art: Rubaiat Habib


"I believe that dynamic pictures will someday be the primary medium for visual art and visual explanations" - Bret Victor.


Kitty is a sketch-based tool for authoring dynamic and interactive illustrations. Artists can sketch animated drawings and textures to convey the living phenomena, and specify the functional relationship between its entities to characterize the dynamic behavior of systems and environments. As the viewer interacts with the resulting dynamic interactive illustration, the parameters of the drawing change accordingly, depicting the dynamics and chain of causal effects within a scene.

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A dynamic comic strip (authored with Kitty) illustrates the changes in the scene as the viewer interacts with the plant and clock

Design


To specify the interactive behavior of entities, Kitty relies on an underlying relational graph structure, where nodes correspond to the entities and edges represent the functional correspondence between the entities' parameters. Kitty displays this graph in the context of the illustration, and authors can specify edges and their associated functions through freeform sketching. This enables an intuitive interaction, without requiring any programming or scripting.


Sketching a path between the source object node (the egg) and the target emitting texture node (soup splash), creates a relation between the two visual entities. Upon creation, the relation control widget (radial menus and mapping function widget) are made visible. The artist selects the parameters for the relation, then directly sketches the mapping function. The splash then occurs only when the egg hits the surface. The cat is drawn in likeliness of Simon't Cat, used with permission.

 

An animated infographic illustrating the weather of a cold windy week in Toronto. The relational functions are generated from an underlying weather data file.

Sign up!


We intend to bring the power of intricate animation effects and interactive graphics to the creative hands of mass users. Kitty is about to appear in ACM's User Interface and Software Technology Symposium (UIST) 2014. Kitty is a functional research prototype at this moment. For up-to-date information, research outcomes and product announcements, please sign up this form.

Sounds exciting? We are open to ideas, discussion and collaboration with creators. Drop us a line if you are interested.

Publications
3 publications
Motion Amplifiers: Sketching Dynamic Illustrations Using the Principles of 2D Animation

Rubaiat Habib, Tovi Grossman, Nobuyuki Umetani, George Fitzmaurice (2016)

Motion Amplifiers: Sketching Dynamic Illustrations Using the Principles of 2D Animation
CHI 2016 Conference proceedings:
ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
10 pages
Download PDF

Details
Kitty: Sketching Dynamic and Interactive Illustrations

Rubaiat Habib, Fanny Chevalier, Tovi Grossman, George Fitzmaurice (2014)

Kitty: Sketching Dynamic and Interactive Illustrations
UIST 2014 Conference proceedings:
ACM Symposium on User Interface Software & Technology
11 pages
Download PDF

Details
Draco: Bringing Life to Illustrations with Kinetic Textures

Rubaiat Habib, Fanny Chevalier, Tovi Grossman, Shengdong Zhao, George Fitzmaurice (2014)

Draco: Bringing Life to Illustrations with Kinetic Textures
CHI 2014 Conference proceedings:
ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
10 pages
Download PDF

Details
Project Members
  • George Fitzmaurice
  • Tovi Grossman
Alumni Members
  • Rubaiat Habib
  • Overview
  • Publications
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