Immersive Drawing with Mental Canvas and Microsoft

vl_mental_canvas_central_park

Above are some screen shots of a drawing of Central Park that I created digitally. The difference with this drawing is that it is totally immersive – you can move into it, pan around it, let it move past you – this is a dream come true for draftsmen! I did this drawing using Mental Canvas, a new 3D drawing technology that I have had the privilege of working with. I demonstrated this technology on the new Surface Studio device at the Microsoft event in New York City this past week – great day, and great new way to draw/think on a computer!

A short video that shows some of this in motion can be seen HERE. You’ll see a little of the drawing above, as well as a drawing of Grand Central by architect Carol Hsiung, and a master Japanese print that was made digital by designer Sydney Shea. A great team to work with, and exciting new possibilities!

Mental Canvas is the creation of Yale professor Julie Dorsey, you can read more about it on their website, here.

I’ve been very involved with this project and I am so proud to see it finally hitting the public! It’s not available yet, but will be soon. :)

posted by Veronica

Comments (2)

  1. Steve

    Lovely sketches, but when viewed through Mental Canvas Player they exude a deeper richness of life, and the Scene Animation conveys the illustrator’s experiential intent too. If the learning curve for Mental Canvas isn’t steep and the time to produce these immersive drawings is modest, it could become as ubiquitous as SketchUp. It would be interesting to know how much time it took to produce this drawing.

  2. Veronica

    Steve, the time it took to produce this drawing is about the same as the time it takes to draw it on paper. The program is intuitive, so you can create the immersive shifts as you draw. Thanks.

Post a comment


*