Making 3D objects through bimanual actions

While many sophisticated 3D rendering methods become available to produce realistic output, 3D data input still is a tedious and time-consuming task. The paper proposes a method for creating 3D objects using hand gestures. Two types of 3D shape forming tasks are considered. One is to create a completely new object from scratch and the other is to make it by changing an existing one. In the first case, a 3D modeling method is designed and implemented to provide functions like creation, blending and deformation of multiple 3D shapes easily controlled by intuitive bimanual gestures. The implicit superquadric functions are applied to building a gesture-based 3D object modeler with extensions of blending and deformations. In the second case, a 3D data management function is proposed to share and reuse existing shapes created by using the 3D modeler mentioned above. All 3D data are kept small in size and retrieved by picturing partial shapes with the user´s hands. As a consequence, the proposed method allows users to consistently deal with all object modeling tasks including creation, storage and reuse of 3D objects through natural and intuitive hand gestures. Some 3D objects and a miniature solid model are shown to present the expressive power and usefulness of the proposed method