This smoothing operation is very subtle such that artists don’t realize it’s happening - if they did notice, it would compromise the desired illusion of drawing on real paper or canvas. In order to generate a smooth curve representation, Meander uses a 2-step approach applied in an adaptive window of the most recent samples from the input device.įirst, the points input from the device are “faired” or smoothed. If an application simply connects these points with straight lines, the strokes will appear jagged and contain hard angles. Each device delivers sequential points at a particular frequency representing the path of the input. Meander accepts input from any standard input device, such as a mouse or tablet. For easy integration into a variety of applications, MeanderKit also has C and Python API layers, which allow for the integration into C, ObjC, Python and Swift applications. Meander and MeanderKit are both written in C++ for fast performance and leverage OpenGL for hardware-accelerated rendering. This technique was also used in the short-film Feast. This allowed us to create the effect of an animated painting on Paperman– with all the benefits of CG animation (smoothness, depth, stability) and combine it with the benefits of hand-drawn animation (emotional cues from lines, every frame drawn to camera). Given 3D animation and strokes drawn on top, those strokes are then “carried” along with the 3D animation but always drawn as two-dimensional strokes. Taking this concept a step further– on Paperman, the stroke geometry could be “attached” to an underlying 3D animated character. While the system cannot make artistic choices, it can however assist the artist in doing arduous tasks such as inbetweening subtle movements that require great precision. For example, Meander has inbetweening capabilities– given similar drawings on different frames, the system can interpolate the strokes and draw them as if the artist had drawn them. Once we could ensure that the drawing quality was as good or better than all other drawing tools, we could then focus on adding the new abilities that the geometric information would allow. To be compelling, Meander has to empower artists in ways not possible without a computer while not compromising the ease-of-use of paper. In the case of drawing, it’s difficult to improve upon pencil and paper. The primary goal of any artistic tool is to allow an artist to express their intent as quickly and easily as possible– unencumbered by complexity of interface. In short, Meander stores the geometry and characteristics of a stroke (its centerline, width, color, pen) but renders the curves similar to how a raster program does. High pen/brush quality and customization.Meander attempts to leverage the best of both in such a way to better fit the needs of Disney artists.īased on our needs at Disney Animation, we identified a few features of each and combined them to create a list of must-haves. Vector programs represent strokes as geometry, allowing for features like editability of any strokes after they’re drawn and allows for scaling of drawings without loss of detail. Raster programs are those where as you draw, you have no editing capabilities for your strokes - you can only erase or redraw in order to change the image.

Most drawing systems fall into the category of either purely vector or purely raster. What makes Meander a vector/raster hybrid drawing system?

Vector raster difference for animation