Exploring sketch beautification techniques

Beautification of vague, imprecise sketchy ink input is an interesting area for exploration, especially with the emergence of pen-based systems, such as the Tablet PC. Fifty percent of the total time spent creating drawings on a computer is on formalisation operations [3], why waste this time when the same result is achievable via recognition and beautification techniques? We examined beautification and its value in supporting the design process by prototyping a design tool incorporating several beautification techniques. The following is a description of the design, construction and evaluation of our grid based design environment.