RE: [Fwd: Re: Confused]

From: Brock Hinzmann (bhinzmann@sric.sri.com)
Date: Thu May 06 1999 - 02:36:05 EEST


picking up on Michael's rhetorical question about using CAD:

michael rees wrote:
 how does it make sense to use RP for sculpture? Only when the
>sculptor works directly in CAD. How many sculptors work in CAD? Not
>many. How much can we expect this market to grow? If you could get
>sculptors to give you this kind of quantitive data, you would be a
>superlative market researcher. If, on the other hand, one took a longer
>view that as the few sculptors in the world begin to excite others about
>using rp through exhibition and education. And on the other hand CAD
>became more accesible. And the cost of access to RP were affordable.
>Well its a no brainer. I think this is happening slowly.

one of the aspects of this is the clunky computer interface for creative
work on the computer. Even engineers have said that drawing with a
computer mouse is like drawing with a brick (and given that SRI is where the
mouse was invented, I say this with reluctance). Designers and, I will
imagine, artists agree with that and would like to see a more intuitive computer
interface for creative work. While Michael may have made the investment to
master certain pieces of hardware and software, many artists continue to
argue that drawing, painting, and sculpting with their hands is more
intuitive than CAD and RP and a lot less expensive. Perhaps by working on the
cost and usefulness of VR-type interfaces, the CAD and, therefore, RP
advantages will become more obvious or, at least, explorable, even with the
current RP equipment.

Brock Hinzmann
Technology Navigator
SRI International

For more information about the rp-ml, see http://ltk.hut.fi/rp-ml/



This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : Tue Jun 05 2001 - 22:51:39 EEST