WARPY: Sketching Environment-Aware 3D Curves in Mobile Augmented Reality

Abstract

Three-dimensional curve drawing in Augmented Reality (AR) enables users to create 3D curves that fit within the real-world scene. It has applications in 3D design, sculpting, and animation. However, the task complexity increases when the desirable path for the curve is obstructed by the physical environment or by what the camera can see. For example, it is difficult to draw a curve that wraps around an object or scales to out-of-reach places. We propose WARPY, an environment-aware 3D curve drawing tool for mobile AR. Our system enables users to draw freeform curves from a distance in AR by combining 2D-to-3D sketch inference with geometric proxies. Geometric Proxies can be obtained via 3D scanning or from a list of pre-defined primitives. WARPY also provides a multi-view mode to enable users to sketch a curve from multiple viewpoints, which is useful if the target curve cannot fit within the camera's field of view. We conducted two user studies and found that WARPY can be a viable tool to help users create complex and large curves in AR.