Painting an Apple with an Apple

Abstract

We introduce UnicrePaint, a digital painting system that allows the user to paint with physical objects by acquiring three parameters from the interacting object: the form, the color pattern and the contact pressure. The design of the system is motivated by a hypothesis that integrating direct input from physical objects with digital painting offers unique creative experiences to the user. A major technical challenge in implementing UnicrePaint is to resolve the conflict between input and output, i.e., to be able to capture the form and color pattern of contacting objects from a camera, while at the same time be able to present the captured data using a projector. We present a solution for this problem. We implemented a prototype and carried out a user study with fifteen novice users. Additionally, five professional users with art-related backgrounds participated in a user study to obtain insights into how professionals might view our system. The results show that UnicrePaint offers unique experiences with painting in a creative manner. Also, its potentials beyond mere artwork are suggested.