Whiteboard Physics Animation (Video) real ?

[Igor Suman]

Is this real-time whiteboard animation real or fake ?:-

 

[freelancejak]

No, that's probably a real whiteboard. I remember my calculus professor telling me about such a board three years ago, when there were only one or two around, so it wouldn't be a stretch to see a video of one now.

 

I suspect that it works by similar technology to the Nintendo Wii, multiple sensors keeping track of the movements of a stick and translating that into a GUI input.

[5614]

That's pretty impressive software.

 

That type of whiteboard is quite common now. Where the whiteboard acts as a touch sensitive screen for a computer. Although it's only touch sensitive to special pens.

 

What's clever about this is not the whiteboard itself, but the software which can tell whether the user wishes to draw a wheel (circle) or attach that wheel to an axel (a smaller circle), or group something (a big circle around it all).

 

After that it's quite simple again. I remember playing puzzle games when I was much younger where you had to move bits of wood etc. so that the balls would end up in the right place. You could even create your own levels and all. The point being that the ability for a program to simulate something freefalling isn't very complex or new.

 

I'd say what's "coolest" (to use their word) about that program is the recognition. You may have noticed that when he was drawing the rectangular planes for the balls to fall down that one of the sides was drawn at a very slight angle. Although the shape still had 4 distinct sides, the very small angle made the computer actually interpretted it as a triangle.