UIST2008: Kinematic Templates for Content-Relative Cursor Manipulations

Richard Fung, Edward Lank, & Michael Terry
University of Waterloo, Computer Science
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada


Celine Latulipe
University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Charlotte, NC, USA

SUMMARY:
     The authors of this paper explore kinematic templates.  Kinematic templates are "an end-user tool for defining content-specific motor space manipulations in the context of editing 2D visual compositions."  The picture below will give you a better idea of what they are.  The shape on the left is the user input.  The shapes with the background grids are kinematic templates.  As you can see the software automatically adjusts the pend stroke depending on the template.

    Previous work in a similar area has been done on snap and go cursor movements.  Snap and go techniques cause the line or shape to snap or connect to another shape in the general area.  Kinematic templates differ because they change anything written anywhere on its surface.  Kinematic templates can be defined anywhere on the drawing surface and they can be of any size.  Below is a result from their study where a user drew a sun.

    In this drawing two templates were used.  The first was a compass template to help the users draw near perfect circles.  The second is a sand paper template which modifies the control-display gain of the cursor.  Control-display gain is the when the cursor moves at a slower or quicker speed than what the user actually inputs.  In this example the control-display gain is lowered to help the user draw the sun within a certain region.

The authors distinguish between two types of templates:
Passive Templates - Alter the control display gain
Active Templates - Alter the cursor movement independent of changes in the x and y coordinates

    An example of an active template would be the magnetic template.  This template actively pulls the cursor towards a defined point.  It is important to note that ALL templates affect the cursor only when the mouse button is pushed down.

     In conclusion templates provide a way of manipulating cursor placement without strictly prescribing output.  They lie somewhere between free hand drawing and snap and go techniques.

DISCUSSION:
     This is a very interesting tool that could provide useful for programs like paint, photoshop, and paint shop pro.  It would also be interesting to try and apply this technique to our second project.  It might even provide more useful when using a drawing pad than a mouse.