Have you ever looked at a painting and wished you could jump inside – explore beyond the bounds of what the image displays? With Mental Canvas, there’s no wondering what’s to the left of a drawing, what’s above, or what’s behind that wall over there. With mental canvas, you can jump right in and see.
Where photography and animation have made leaps of progress in the past century, sketching has remained relatively the same. Which seems illogical, as sketching is a key part of any creative process. When you need to brainstorm initial ideas and create storyboards, you sketch. Mental Canvas aims to enhance this crucial part of design by turning static sketches into an explorative 3D world.
Mental Canvas is an intuitive drawing tool that gives 2D hand drawn sketches a range of 3D capabilities. Founded by Julie Dorsey, the aim of the software is to reinvent the sketching process, with a focus on giving you the freedom to completely and truthfully convey your ideas, which computer aided design may hinder. Julie Dorsey explains “It doesn’t feel like you’re being limited; it’s like sketching unbounded.”
As a bonus, the software is extremely easy to use. You just sketch, change the perspective of the canvas by zooming in/out or turning, and sketch again. This cuts right past the steep learning curve and time-consuming nature of 3D modelling. So, when ideas are still fresh in your mind, you can quickly bring them into reality. Perspective can also be hard to communicate with 2D sketches. With mental canvas, you can show with clarity how your idea works in a 3D world.
The free version of the software provides you with the basis of 3D sketching, but if you’re looking for more, the upgraded models give you the option of creating an animated fly-through as a virtual tour of your work, as well as the ability to upload your work online so that anyone on any device can travel through your artwork at their own pace. You can check out Mental Canvas for yourself here.
As always, if you would like to learn more about this software among other cutting-edge advancements in the industry, contact us at hello@shootyou.co.uk
