Summary
MathPad
2 is a very nice sketch application that attempts to enrich the experience of doing math in tablet by animating the components drawn in the sketch. The paper focuses on the prototype application that involves shape and gesture recognition that enables the user to interact with the equations and the pictures that they model. One of the claimed contributions of mathpad is the novel gestural recognition used in the interface that is said to be more general and work fluently trough several domains as math typing and diagram drawing.
Discussion
This is one of those applications that encourage keeping working on sketch recognition. All of us that have dealt with an equation somewhere in our lives can value the power of receiving live feedback. Furthermore if that can be done in a completely natural interface that feels like the pen and paper that we used in school is even better. The interface that they show has simple yet very powerful ideas to manage gestures accurately and easily. I like the tap after the command as it is natural and easy to use but avoids the annoying false positives usually found in gesture recognizers.
I would love to just write out a few physics equations, state the variables I know, and let the software solve the problem for me. If I had that software when I was taking physics, my homework would not have been difficult at all. It's a pity MathPad2 is only the first of many stages required to make that dream a reality. I wonder how our children or grandchildren will be doing their physics homework.
ReplyDeleteI agree, the few times I tried in high-school to format my equations in tools like word it was completely frustrating. MathPad would have really simplified things.
ReplyDeletewhat is the actual contribution of this work to sketch recognition doamin, most of the work of detecting characters, digits, and gestures are done. In my opinion, this is just an application, like what we proposed to do in wii remote air traffic signaling system.......... :)
ReplyDelete