Sunday, May 21, 2017

Oh, patents! Tilt Brush

Copyright © Françoise Herrmann

Have you ever painted in space... without paper.... that is, in 3D VR (Virtual Reality) "using a room as your canvas”?

If you have not and have entertained the thought of jumping into VR with paint brushes, then you are in for a thrilling treat with Tilt Brush -- an award-winning application, which most recently garnered the SXSW 2017 Interactive Innovation Award in the VR and AR category! 

Painting inside 3D VR software (wearing a 3D headset and manipulating the handheld controller palette and brush ) is exactly how you might paint with Tilt Brush, and even record and playback your art piece. Using an extraordinary array of paint brush effects such as dry and wet ink, patterns, metal, lights, animated, volumetric, refraction and music reactive strokes, you can paint, draw, sculpt, animate and re-invent the possibilities --out of 2D Flatland paper, and into 3D space! 

See the Tilt Brush launch video!


Tilt Brush was originally developed by Skillman and Hackett, a company that develops rapid prototyping and VR applications. The company was then purchased in April 2016 by Google Inc, and is now part of the Google VR portfolio.

This invention is disclosed in a family of 2 patents, using a dress form as the anchoring object and fashion design as a possible domain of application:
  • US20160370971 - Dress form for three-dimensional drawing inside virtual reality environment
  • WO2017048685 - Generation of three-dimensional fashion objects by drawing inside a virtual reality environment
The abstract of this invention is included below with the Figure 3 patent drawing.
Systems and methods are described for producing a representation of a display of a three-dimensional virtual reality environment and defining a dress form object within the virtual reality environment. The virtual reality environment is configured to receive interactive commands from at least one input device coupled to a computing device and associated with a user. Fabric movement simulations are generated by animating the dress form object according to configured animation data and displayed in the virtual reality environment. The display being may be generated in response to receiving a movement pattern indicating movement of the dress form object. (Abstract WO2017048685 and US20160370971)

Tilt Brush is available on HTC VIVE and OCULUS Rift VR platform headsets. 

References
Tilt Brush
Blog Drew Skillman
SXSW™ (South by SouthWest)

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