Driller: An Intuitive Interface for Designing Tangled and Nested Shapes

Abstract

The ability to represent not only isolated shapes but also shapes that interact is essential in various fields, from design to biology or anatomy. In this paper, we propose an intuitive interface to control and edit complex shape arrangements. Using a set of pre-defined shapes that may intersect, our ''Driller'' interface allows users to trigger their local deformation so that they rest on each other, become tangled, or even nest within each other. Driller provides an intuitive way to specify the relative depth of different shapes beneath user-selected points of interest by setting their local depth ordering perpendicularly to the camera's viewpoint. Deformations are then automatically generated by locally propagating these ordering constraints. In addition to being part of the final arrangement, some of the shapes can be used as deformers, which can be later deleted to help sculpt the target shapes. We implemented this solution within a sketch-based modeling system designed for novice users.