Like I/O Brush in two dimensions, Maquette is a framework for rapid idea generation using objects and textures at hand in the real world. Digital modeling in three dimensions is a slow process which can never keep pace with the brain’s speed of idea generation. By using physical objects to quickly build up complicated digital forms, three dimensional modeling can rival sketching as a fast ideation tool.
The device is a hand-held object with two buttons, two depth cameras, and one RGB camera. The sensors act like a Kinect to scan objects and textures in real-time. Through the use of the buttons and simple gestures any found object can be captured in the space of a digital model on-screen. The same object in real-life can then be used (moved and rotated) to control it’s digital representation. Objects can be placed, removed from the model, and booleaned out of the model using the buttons on the remote and on-screen menus. It is also possible to use props to perform operations on the model (i.e., a piece of paper can slice through the model, cutting it in half and removing one piece). Finally, as with the I/O Brush, textures can be painted onto the model using image data picked up from the RGB sensor.