A Digital Ink Sketch-Based Application for Collaborative Design and Kinematic Simulation

Sketching is an important task in early design. In general, designers begin their work by sketching their ideas because of the freedom and productivity that hand drawing provides. Nowadays there are many computer interfaces that allow sketching directly onto the computer. However, few sketching applications combine recognition of elements, modeling, simulation, and automated verification with collaborative features in order to promote simultaneous and remote group work. This paper presents a discussion on how to promote collaborative sketching and kinematic simulation for digital ink applications. In order to support the discussion, we built a prototype by modifying an existing digital ink application. The proposed prototype allows users located in geographically distributed sites to cooperate by sketching, exploring, simulating, and developing their ideas interactively. Potential applications of our prototype include collaborative design and simulation of mechanical engineering machines, rapid prototype of ideas, animation, education, and recreational usage.