Eskizi etkileşim şekli olarak kullanan öncül yazılımlar üzerine bir model önerisi
A new model built on predessor softwares that use sketch metaphor as a user-computer interaction
Yazar: TURAN ALTINTAŞ
Danışman: PROF. DR. ARZU ERDEM
İstanbul Teknik Üniversitesi / Fen Bilimleri Enstitüsü / Bilişim Ana Bilim Dalı / Mimari Tasarım Bilim Dalı
Derece: Yüksek Lisans, 2015
Konu: Mimarlık = Architecture
Dizin: Grafiksel kullanıcı arayüzü = Graphical user interface

Özet:
Bugün, yazılım ve bilgisayarlar, günlük hayatta yapılan haberleşme, çizim yapma, bir hiyerarşideki bilgiye ulaşma, hesaplama yaptırma gibi belirli bir yolu olan tekrarlı işler yanında, arkadaşlarla buluşma ayarlama, fotoğraf çekme, internet üzerinde arama yapma gibi, katagorilendirmenin veya isimlendirmenin anlamlı olmayacağı, hassasiyet kaygısı olmadan ve az aşamalı işlerde de kullanılmaya başlamıştır. İnternete her yerden ulaşılabilinmesini sağlayan teknolojik altyapı ve akıllı telefon gibi donanımlar, bilgisayarın her yere taşınabilen ve üzerinde karmaşık olmayan rutinlere sahip işler yaptırılabilecek bir araç kutusu haline getirmektedir. Bu tezin amacı bu basit araçlar kutusuna, yine günlük hayatta çokca kullanılan kalem ve kağıdı da, "ilişkili bilgi kaydetme" başlığı altında yorumlayıp bir yazılım biçiminde eklemektir.
Eskizin birçok kullanım alanından birisi, düz yazı yazma veya bir şeyin resmini çizme gibi sonlu eylemlerin yanında, bir işe başlarkenki ilk planı yapmak, bir ortamda çalışırken o ortamın sunamadığı basit bir soyutlamayı çabuk şekilde kayıt altına almak gibi başka işlerle alakalı yardımcı bir araç olarak kullanılmasıdır. Örnek vermek gerekirse, bir müzisyen bir kayıt yaparken hoşuna giden bir tekrarın kaç tane olunca güzel olduğunu, o güzel olduğu şekilde kaydetmeden önce bir yere not alır, veya bir tasarımcı bir bardak tasarlarken aklına gelen ilk şekilleri hızlı biçimde çizer, daha sonra onları başka bir ortamda uzun uzun detaylandırır.
Bu çalışma bu açıdan eskize bakıp, bu kabiliyetinin hangi bilgisayar fonksiyonlarıyla nasıl daha kuvvetlenebileceği hakkında öneriler yapmaktadır. Bunu yaparkenki kaygısı bu fonksiyonlara ulaşım şekillerinin, insanla eskiz arasındaki kesintisiz ve aşamasız direk ilişkisinin sekteye uğratılmamasıdır. 
Tez metni boyunca eskizin yukarıda bahsi geçen çerçevedeki nitelikleri anlatılacak, kağıt kaleme öykünen daha önceden yapılmış yazılımlar incelenecek, sonrasında çeşitli eskiz kullanım senaryolarında, nasıl yazılım fonksiyonlarının bu eylemleri nasıl kolaylaştırabileceği hakkında fikirler aktarılacaktır. Daha sonrasında bir yazılım modeli, kullanım şekli ve yazılım kurgusu anlatılarak önerilecek, bununla yapılabilecek çeşitli eylemler anlatılacaktır. Bu anlatım sıralı ekran görüntüleriyle, bazı fonksiyonların algoritmalarının anlatımıyla ve olası kullanım senaryolarının anlatılması yoluyla yapılacak, sonuç bölümünde de bu önerinin ne kadar amaçladığı noktaya ulaştığı sorgulanacaktır.

Abstract:
Recent form of computers as tablets and smart phones lets users to use them as a tool for simple tasks that would not require precission and results in a strict medium, such as as take a photo of interesting stuff and ask a friend on social network if he/she knows what it is. These are not tasks such as drafting buildings technical drawing or engineering calculations, or stock control of a warehouse. And these tasks come up with wide usage of internet almost in everyplace and technology that make computers so small and energy-efficent, in a simpler phrase 'mobile'. Today we have a mobile toolset, and this should be useful for practical kind of uses, and there are lots of that tools in smart phones and tablets. 
Sketch is also something mobile. In this thesis, sketch is considered as a medium to help what we are doing or thinking, with allowing us to build visual structures, rather than writing down something or making a drawing of a scene. This kind of usage of sketch is very common, and most of the time when something comes up to our minds, or if we want to tell something too complicated to express with words, we look for paper. The aim of this study is to look for new ways to strengthen this use of sketch, by proposing new functions in software, but without interpreting the natural and direct way of sketching. Scenarios of this(mentioned above) use of sketch are analysed and new tools are proposed to root for a new way of expressing or exploring what is in our minds in these scenarios, to the screen of tablet computer with a electronic pen and fingers.
In first chapter, what is the description of sketch and software with sketching metaphor are mentioned, from thesis' perpective. Sketching is supposed to be a tool for content creation with symbols. And software with this metaphor supposed to be a content creation with those symbols on a tablet computer, which have some computer-wise attributes, different than symbols drawn on to physical paper. Also survey method of some usage scenarios of paper in content creation which are examples of subjects of this thesis. 
The second chapter of this study is a review some past software and hardware proposals which have a unique reassembling of user-computer interaction with a metaphore of sketching. None of those software (like Sutherland's SketchPad) are designed to mimic well known pen-paper sketching, rather they propose new way of interaction using the metaphore of skething . So this thesis study is not looking for a better way of sketching in computer, it looks for using sketch as a medium of software control. Review which is mentioned above involves user-computer interaction examples which are explanied with usage steps of this software in different scenario, and also short explanations of aim of those studies. Usage steps of those softwares are explained with step by step illustrations of computer screen and a description below, which will be also common way of expression within all chapters of thesis. Thesis also mentions about properties of pen-paper sketching which has a potential to transform into a human-computer interaction and properties that makes sketching still a indispensable tool for us and should not be abandoned in favor of more software functions. By the way it should be mentioned that in this thesis, the content of sketching always thoughed a be a medium for analog data structures such as a shopping list with prices, places to buy and personal notes, rather than a beautiful and realistic freehand sketch of a tree. It should be highlighted that those software which are reviewed in second chapter have this kind of perspective onto sketching metaphor.
In third chapter some work scenarios about content creation with physical sketch and widely used computer softwares will be compared. Those softwares are not softwares mentioned in second chapter which use sketch as a metaphor .They are in this comparison because they are softwares which comes up to mind first to accomplish related scenario. This comparison will be about steps of progress and elapsed time to finish the job of related scenario. Than this two output will be illustrated and some distinct points of differences will be listed. After this comparision, a new software routine which benefits both from sketch and software in comparison, will be proposed. Those proposals will be fictional software routines which work on a tablet computer with pen and touch input. And aim of those proposals are to create a fusion of good sides of both physical sketching and computer which are revealed in comparison. After this comparisons and proposals, a fictional software proposal which consists all of those past-proposed software routines and more will be presented. Some fragments of this fictional software is also coded (code is presented in the end of thesis) with Java to demonstrate some fragments with real interaction. This fictional model software will be explained with step by step illustrations of usage, explanations of algorithms/routines of software and possible working scenarios with it. 
In last chapter software proposal will be evaluated of how much it succeed its motive, and downsides/potentials will be explained. This evaluation will be about how much it succeed its aim, proposing a collection of computer functions which will useful for content creation, in a way that won't restrain the practicality and freedom of pen-paper sketching. Also new possible technologies and usage scenarios will be mentioned, which would be helpful for proposal, to achieve its motive.
After mention about structure of thesis and its goal, it is also worthwile to explain how does proposed software works, thus illustrations of fictional screenshots and diagrams in thesis which are not shown in this abstract, are very important elements to describe it. The software have no selection menu or array of buttons, so when this sketch software started, there is only white blank screen, just like piece of paper. User have two tools for input, first one is a digital pen that lets user draw shapes on screen. Digital pen always draw shape on screen in every phase and moment in this content creation. Users can draw anyplace in screen just like sketching with pen and paper because there is no reserved area for interface or something else. Second way of input is touching screen with fingers. When screen is touched, a floating and transparent menu appear on the touched area of screen. This menu is responsive to the shapes and graphic object under touched area. If user touches a blank area, a creation menu will appear, if user touches on a graphic object or a shape, a menu to edit this object pops up. User make selection with sliding his/her finger on those menus. Some of functions listed on those menus may require a second finger input, or require pencil input. With this interface user can add graphic objects which can effect what he/she draws, or construct something with those objects. To clarify difference between freehand shapes that purely created with digital pen and graphic objects made with help of finger touch functions; freehand shapes can not interact and they are as easy as physical sketching but graphic objects can interact within theirself and freehand shapes. But this interaction requires a definition with can be constructed with pop up menus, finger movements and selections. There is five kind of graphic objects; point, connected points, freehand with reference point, aperture with reference point and time objects. All of those objects have position attribute. Users can define a connection within position attributes of different objects, so when a point of those object moves, other one can move within this definition. Definition can be created by moving those objects at the same time, and software records those movement changes and create a relation between them. Point object is a bare point which have just position attribute. Connected points are polylines with position attribute and color attribute. Freehand sketch with reference point have color and reference point position attribute. Color attributes are also presented as point attached to reference points of those objects and they can be connected another objects position attribute. Different than those three graphic objects there is a time object which records all history of sketch and let user to see different moments and fragments of their work. Time object is a line with points which is drawn by combination of dijital pen and finger input on screen. User controls which fragment of sketch appears in screen by moving control points with finger touch. Another object is aperture with a reference point, which is actualy a user drawn hole in sketching canvas in order to see another software (just like a internet browser, a video player etc.) through it. User can draw something on it with electronic pen or, use the software through this hole with finger touch. All those five objects can be copied as instances, can be deleted, can be connected or can be redefined.
To sum up the goal of the proposed software, it intends to create a digital tool kit for content creation, which is similar to content creation with physical sketch. Without any intervention to the behavior of physical sketching as possible, proposal try to mimic sketching in a tablet computer and add some software functions which also can be created and contolled with sketching metaphor. To achive this, firstly thesis examined some picked out software that use sketching as a metaphor for user interaction, than used some methods of doing things from those software. Than some working scenarios which are typical examples of content creation with physical sketching are examined, than new scenario specific softwares, which try to achieve a efficient hybrid between sketch and potentials of computer, are proposed. All those past examples and new proposals combined in a fictional model software. So this software in a tablet computer can be used exactly same way as a pen and a piece of paper. In addition to this sketch simulation, users can add special functions which helps them for content creation if they want, in a transparent and floating user interface which have a sketchy way of doing things.