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Drawing in 3D
The Wacomvision is a three dimensional canvas for creating and viewing art, products, and models. Three dimensional paintings can be created and shared online. Brush size, pressure sensitivity, and brush type are customizable. Snapshots and videos can be taken of your artwork. Not going to make it to the Louvre? You can use this product to download and view preserved art up close and from all angles.
In a business applications, imagine being able to walk around a concept car or viewing a model without a rapid prototyping lab, model making time, or money. Three dimensional models can be sent between clients to review work. Notes and requests can be marked and saved on certain areas of the models using the pen tool. You can also virtually render, paint, record, and capture views.
This product uses a state of the art virtual tracking system called IGPS Technology. This modular product has three transmitters that are wireless and placed around the edges of your 3D canvas. After the transmitters are automatically calibrated for each use, they use invisible infrared laser signals that create a three dimensional environment. The pen is imbedded with a sensor in the tip that streams its exact 3D position using the signals from the transmitters. The information is relayed back to the console and wirelessly transmitted for viewing through the virtual glasses.
A USB connection to the console allows for viewing of outside virtual models to be used as underlays. You can choose to view your artwork with or without the actual physical background. Multiple people can be linked to the same projection so you can work as part of a team. In order to bring up the interface, the button on the pen is pushed. The interface menu can be dragged and docked all around your environment. The button on the top right hand edge of the glasses can be pushed to allow for picture and videos to be taken.
Designer: Lauren Argo
34 Comments »
BOXHead says
AWESOME! when and where can i buy it?
xiaofengzi123 says
wow…..nice idea to create sth haha
That will be helpful to view your design clear and straightly for modification
Noah says
Yaha! It’s perfect! I love it, all that we have to do is actually make it and I will immediately buy it even if it costs over $1K! It is just beyond awesome, and would be just perfect for video game design! If anyone has any info as to when it goes into production please reply to this comment.
pat says
its called a concept. it won’t go into production
Lamah says
It might do, all of the technologies described really exist. You could build it today but it would be much more bulky and inaccurate than this design implies.
Jeremiah says
I had a much better comment than what I’m typing now, but when I clicked post it didn’t go through and I’m too lazy to remember to what I did type. ANYWAY…
Pat: It really is quite unfortunate how many comments you find where people automatically assume something will be put into production. I’m assuming they’re just so excited by the idea that the child in them must let others know how they feel.
Now as for my input: I don’t like the fact that you have to wear the glasses simply because I wear glasses. I say make the glasses (which do look cool none the less) into goggles. Or atleast provide googles with the same functionality of the glasses for those who already wear a prescriptioned pair. The photo and video idea put into the specs are great, my only suggestion to that is add a zoom-in and zoom-out feature on the side of the frame (maybe by touch control
). Again, the fact that the glasses look like shades, I wouldn’t be surprised if people actually wore them while not working 
But yeah, goggles! And I’m sold (on the idea that is…) Oh, and maybe being able to wall mount the projectors as well, we wouldn’t want to step on them now would we 
Great idea! If by the grace of God this did go into production in our near future, I would invest in it as soon as I could afford it.
P.S. – This comment actually turned out better than my first one
Cheers!
Noah says
Well, that’s a lot of smily faces… well in any case, like I said, everything stars as a concept so don’t assume it WON’T go into production.
Noah says
It’s called a concept. It will go into production if there is sufficient demand and good enough access to building material/cost to make. Everything man-made starts as a concept, learn the definition of concept would you?
Jeremiah says
Too bad it sucks I wear glasses. It would be awesom if it came with a second pair of glasses in the shape of goggles to fit over my glasses like safety glasses used for wood or metal work. Just a thought. Don’t forget about the people with the specs!
EPIC idea though! If it did, by the grace of God, go into production, I would save up as fast as i can and clear a room. What an awesome idea and super clear concept. It seems like a step in the right direction for how designers/renderers could work! 
Jeremiah says
I don’t like the fact that you have to wear the glasses simply because I wear glasses. I say make the glasses (which do look cool none the less) into goggles. Or at least provide goggles with the same functionality of the glasses for those who already wear a prescription pair. The photo and video idea put into the specs are great, my only suggestion to that is add a zoom-in and zoom-out feature on the side of the frame (maybe by touch control
). Again, the fact that the glasses look like shades, I wouldn’t be surprised if people actually wore them while not working. 
But yeah, goggles! And I’m sold (on the idea that is…) Oh, and maybe being able to wall mount the projectors as well, we wouldn’t want to step on them now would we 
bofh says
Why do you people like ideas floating around so much? Isn’t it obvious design, natural progress in CAD development? Almost anyone, who ever worked with 3D/CAD modeling tools wishes he could see model in real life and edit it with hands. So what’s new in this design? It doesn’t suggests any kind of 3D projecting technology, right? It locks your creativity with need to handle special pen, right?
Imagine you can use any object as input, including your fingers! You can take real brush in hand and draw, you can take paint sprayer to have that painting-on-the-real-wall feeling. You can model statue from virtual clay just with your fingers. And what is really great, that it all can be done with video cameras and tracking software right now! You even can easily try this with your web camera! Come on people, what’s wrong with you? Explain me, why some unrealistic 3D render of non existing device amuses you?
Mert Can says
May be cause they are but not “designers”; seconded.
Yet the ideas first “frontiers” can be a “room” sized things which we might have to get into and try to use it.
That glasses should be replaced with Googles or Visor type things.
Seriously, that kind of design/sketch process brings a lot of effort; you can draw a car tire on a standart A4/A3 paper in seconds including the details and it would look like a lot perfect to the eye, guess what i just did use my hand-eye coordination to do that with minimal effort. I do this all night long…
But trying to sketch with this 3d and the size/depth of the idea… thats a lot of effort. Anyone can do this all night long?
MadCow says
im surprised nobody has said this yet – this technology already exists, i saw Tony Starks do it in Iron Man! and he did it without the glasses and pen!
Nowwer says
Dude that was a movie. The guy flew around in a mechanical suit, remember? I’m pretty sure that hasn’t happened yet. Another example of how people are [partialy] controled by the media. No offense to media though.
MadCow relative says
Dude that was a joke.
Will says
Is a pen really the best 3D info input device? There is no analogue in fine arts. I feel like sculptors use their tool sets for a reason…
Shane says
clay modeling in this way would be truly awesome. A pen is much simpler though because the tip has a definitive point in space. (the nib) sculpture tools come in all manner of shape and size and i think it would have to be developed after pen based technology.
bofh says
Clay have resistance! How would you do something accurate with material that does not exist? Just grab some paper, hang it in the air and try to draw strait line. Just one strait line and you feel what I mean. Just try.
Jason says
This type of idea wins contests. It would be cool. And it promotes walking and standing which is more interactive and less sedentary than normal design.
zenbardian says
beutifull dude … i have a wacom bamboo, but this is the greatest tool i have ever see ,, welll since the pencil of course ,, jojo … but WOOOOOOOOOOOOW … i want one of those . c’mon ,, masss production NOW please …
Soo says
omg that is amazing i really hope i can get that one day haha is it affordable???
Semi Essessi says
Very interesting, I’ve often thought about how cool something like this would be, we’ve had the technology to do it for years now. But on the other hand I can’t imagine it would be very practical… It doesn’t offer any functionality beyond what you can already get from a PC already.
It might look like it does, but things like “being able to walk around a concept car” are just gimmicks. Being able to rotate a model in 3d on a 2d monitor actually provides more functionality (you can see from all angles including underneath or overhead without physical effort).
Of course being gimmicky can be a good thing, actual functionality is not always what people want.
There is also the issue of getting practical functionality out of the pen in 3d space… its certainly a non-trivial problem. For leaving notes you could always project the result onto a plane, but how about detecting when the pen touches the “paper”? How much tolerance does it have? What does it mean if the pen goes through the virtual paper? Should the user be able to turn the pen on and off to control when they write?
It would certainly be very difficult to use the pen as a pen for freehand 3d editing too, making disconnected lines join up into solid geometry or triangles is difficult. It is difficult to discern straight lines with errors from intentional curves or ridges meaning that practical (low polygon count) models would be difficult to produce without compromising accuracy because AFAIK there is still no good solution to the general case for lowering level of detail. A SketchUp type interface, using the pen as a pointer would be more practical… perhaps this is the idea?
I’d certainly love to write the software for something like this… it seems like a very difficult and interesting set of problems to solve.
PEZ says
Seems like a pair of gloves would work out better than a pen.
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