A Sketch-based Interface for the Design and Analysis of Simple Vibratory Mechanical Systems

We describe a sketch-based interface designed to provide engineers with a computer environment similar to pen and paper. With our interface, users can construct functional engineering models simply by drawing sketches on a computer screen. Unlike paper sketches, however, our interface allows users to interact with their sketches in real time to modify existing objects and add new ones. To demonstrate the utility of our system, we have developed a sketch-based interface for designing and analyzing simple vibratory mechanical systems. The technical contributions of our work include: (1) a sketch parsing method for automatically locating the distinct graphical symbols in a sketch, (2) a general-purpose, trainable symbol recognizer, and (3) special purpose prerecognizers that consider shape information and make use of drawing conventions.