Multidimensional Gesture Input for Music Creation Applications
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Legacy music creation applications are inefficient when used with touchscreen devices due to cumbersome and unintuitive user interfaces that rely heavily on mouse and keyboard input, lacking adaptation to modern touchscreens and stylus input devices.
Innovation Solution
Implementing multi-dimensional gestures that allow users to input sound events by selecting musical symbols on a user interface and moving in various dimensions to control parameter values, such as pitch, duration, and inflection, using fingers or stylus input devices, which simplifies the process of creating and editing musical notes and events.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If traditional mouse and keyboard input methods are used in music creation applications, then the application can run on desktop or laptop computers, but the user interface becomes cumbersome and inefficient when used with touchscreen devices
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces multi-dimensional gestures that map spatial movements in multiple dimensions to musical parameters. Users can select a musical symbol and then move their finger or stylus in various dimensions (e.g., vertical for pitch, horizontal for duration, tilt for inflection) to define parameter values, transforming the traditional 2D pointer interaction into a multi-dimensional control system that naturally adapts to touchscreen capabilities.
2Productivity
If multiple separate steps are used to input musical parameters, then each parameter can be controlled precisely, but the input process becomes time-consuming and inefficient
Solution Approach 1:
The patent combines multiple parameter inputs into a single unified gesture. When a user selects a musical symbol and moves their finger or stylus, the movement in multiple dimensions simultaneously defines multiple parameters (pitch, duration, inflection, etc.), merging what would traditionally require multiple separate adjustments into one continuous motion that preserves precision while dramatically improving input speed.
Solution Approach 2:
The system establishes a mapping between gesture dimensions and musical parameters in advance. Before the user performs the gesture, the application has already configured which spatial dimensions correspond to which musical parameters, so that during the gesture execution, the user simply needs to move through the predefined dimensional space to set all parameters at once, eliminating the need for sequential parameter adjustment.
Data Source
AI summary
A graphical user interface for music creation applications, such as score notation applications and digital audio workstations, includes multi-dimensional gestures. To enter a sound event into a musical project, a user uses an input device to select and drag a desired sound event in one or more dimensions. The relative position or rate of movement along a given dimension defines a value of a sound event parameter allocated to the given dimension. The sound event is entered into the project when the selection is released. The user inputs the gesture using a pointing device such as a mouse, stylus with a touch screen, or finger on a touch screen. Stylus dimensions mapped to sound event parameters may include, horizontal and vertical stylus tip positions, vertical and horizontal tilt of the stylus, and stylus tip pressure. Sound event parameters controlled by the gestures may include diatonic pitch, chromatic inflection, and duration.