New tool streamlines the creation of moving pictures

The tool is designed to animate similar elements within an image, such as balloons or raindrops, said Nora Willett, a graduate student in Princeton's Department of Computer Science and the lead author of a paper presenting the research. To do so, the user manually selects a subset of the repeating objects, then draws motion lines and specifies the frequency and velocity at which the objects should move. "The main challenge in this system was to design an interface that allows the person and the computer to work together to create a plausible animation," said co-author Adam Finkelstein, a Princeton professor of computer science. "The person provides clues about what aspects of the scene they would like to animate, and the computer removes much of the difficulty and tedium that would be required to create the animation completely by hand." The new tool builds on the existing capabilities of the Autodesk SketchBook Motion animation app.