More Hand Modeling (and a New eDrawings iPad / iPhone App)

We launched!

eDrawings iPad & iPhone apps (both Pro and Standard) has launched with a new feature - Augmented Reality!

Yours truly is not only a hand model for the app description page this time around, I actually had something to do with designing the Augmented Reality (AR) feature, including the user interface for scaling, locking the viewport, and gestures for manipulating the model like lifting the model off the table.

What is Augmented Reality, you might ask. Here's the wikipedia definition: Augmented reality(AR) is a live, direct or indirect, view of a physical, real-world environment whose elements are augmented by computer-generated sensory input such as sound, video, graphics or GPS data.

It's a new world of 3D model manipulation on smart mobile devices in virtual space.

That's right - SolidWorks has launched this new feature on the existing eDrawings iPhone and iPad apps, so if you have already bought the apps, get the update and the feature will automatically appear. If you haven't bought it... well... what are you waiting for? =P

KitchenAid KitchenMentor Fridge and iPhone App

Our individual project assignment was to create a touch screen interface with accompanying iPhone app called KitchenMentor for KitchenAid's smart fridge. The goal is to help busy everyday folks manage their food and groceries by providing timely information such as when certain food items are low or out, or will be expiring soon.

Many other features are included, but one of the more interesting things we did was hack PowerPoint to create an interactive prototype/demo. I recorded the portion of the presentation that was the demo in the video below. For some reason blogger's video screen freeze is really pixelated below, but the actual video isn't so bad. Give it a bit of time to load fully before playing for best view experience. :)

The demo is just illustrating the touch screen interface that is mounted on the fridge. There is also an accompanying iPhone app that has a subset of the full functionality the fridge mounted display would have. Here are the samples screens that illustrate taking the user from Home -> KitchenDoc -> Recipes -> Recipe Details.

It's my first iPhone app design. Given Apple's rigorous guidelines on buttons and navigation at the top it looks pretty standard iPhone app. But I was glad I could get the custom colors in there to match the fridge display.