Summary:
This paper is all about the LADDER system. It begins with a basic description of the system. LADDER is a tool that allows designers to create sketch recognition "languages" that work with sketch recognizers to form more high-level programs. The paper describes some of the abilities of LADDER and some limitations, including curve-heavy domains. It explains the hierarchy and shape definition of the system, which allows various shapes to be constrained and grouped into complex shapes for various uses. LADDER has an extensive list of constraints, but still has many different directions and area to explore.
Discussion:
I personally love the LADDER tool. I believe it may be the first "sketch recognition design tool", such as Visual Studio is to programming and Adobe Photoshop is to digital graphics (just examples, of course). This is a tool that will provide huge steps in the field. Now, I won't sing its praises too much, because while the program has a lot of potential, it still isn't NEARLY as user-friendly as it could be. The drawing area is pretty intuitive and the shape/contraint window SEEMS straight-forward, but it can get very muddy very quickly, especially with more complex systems. I'm a big fan of the tool, but I'm the first to admit that there's still a lot of work to be done before Hammond et. al can put the program on shelves and available to download to the general public.
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2 comments:
I believe that one of the strongest features in LADDER (or GUILD) is the ability to draw an image and have the constraints created for said image. Often there are way too many constraints, but the set can easily be reduced. It helps people get over the blank page scenario, and quickly gets them into the process of creating shape descriptions.
Love is a strong word though. Appreciate, respect, understand the worth of, but not love.
I do like the IDE aspect of LADDER, but I wish that some aspects were more user-friendly, such as having the preference for recognizers set by the user (I'm tired of changing from Sezgin's to Brandon's). That's a more trivial example, but small issues like this would need to be fixed before the software could be released.
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