FreeForm V3.(SensAble Technologies modeling software)(Software Review)(Evaluation)

Interact with models via touch

Digital artists often complain that although workstations are good at providing an experience for two senses-sight and sound--they don't provide a similar experience for the important sense of touch. A few manufacturers have tried to solve this problem through the use of haptic interfaces that enable users to directly interact with digital objects and data as they do in the real world: using their sense of touch. One such manufacturer, SensAble Technologies, appears to be on the right track.

SensAble is the developer of FreeForm, a modeling system that found its initial niche with toy, footwear, figurine, and ceramics makers--generally at companies where users had difficulty creating by hand in clay or wax the detailed, organic forms their products required.

The FreeForm approach has more recently gained momentum with users modeling for digital content creation and industrial design. As a result, SensAble put into Version 3 some features that are designed to support these new work-flows--among them the ability to export models as NURBS surfaces, and to create multi-part models. According to SensAble, further functionality needed in the DCC and industrial design markets is being incorporated into FreeForm Version 4, which is scheduled to ship this summer.

The FreeForm system consists of Phantom, an articulated arm with a stylus on the end that provides positioning input and force-feedback output; Ghost, which works as the "physics" engine, enabling users to deal with objects and physical properties such as location, mass, and friction; and application software.

Phantom comes in several sizes, ranging from a desktop version to a 3-foot-high model that gives you a large work area. I used the desktop version, which I attached to my computer through a parallel port.

The modeling application uses a clay-sculpting analogy, in that it provides various-size lumps of "virtual clay" in the form of spheres, boxes, and cylinders. You model these lumps by pushing and pulling on their surfaces using tools shaped like spheres, boxes, scrapers, and capsules, to name a few. This is where force feedback enters into the equation. When you use Phantom to run the tools along a model's surface, you can feel the model's contours. Pushing or pulling the surface creates resistance, enabling you to feel the deformations as they occur.