Godzilla: Seamless 2D and 3D Sketch Environment for Reflective and Creative Design Work

The rapid development of information technology has enabled many systems that support creative work. However, it has gradually become obvious that the latest information systems have a serious drawback in that instead of promoting creative work, they often discourage it or let us stop thinking actively while doing it. In this paper, we begin by explaining that such drawbacks of these systems originate from improper selection of a suitable media and modality for promoting both reflective and experimental cognitive activities. After that, we describe an experimental system called "Godzilla" that supports creative design, specifically that of a car-exterior designer. Designers can draw their concept image on a 2D pad (a tablet with an LCD), and when they hold the sketch on the pad in midair, the shape of the 2D sketch is automatically recognized and appears as a 3D sketch displayed by a 3D pad (stereovision TVs). Designers can sketch, modify, and look at their drawings from different viewpoints in either two or three dimensions. Note that the 3D images are not displayed as beautiful CG images, but as 3D sketches that consist of many 3D cursive lines produced by mimicking the designer's pen touch – this is to keep the designers in the reflective cognitive mode and to provide a rich stimulus for their creativity. Finally, we discuss the promising evaluation results that we obtained when Godzilla was used on a trial basis at an automobile manufacturer.