FutureWave Software Inc. Announces Sketching Product for AT&T EO Personal Communicators
LAS VEGAS — November 15, 1993 — FutureWave Software Inc. will announce SmartSketch (TM) at the AT&T/EO booth at COMDEX. SmartSketch is a full-featured graphics software package designed for Personal Communicators using the AT&T Hobbit chip and PenPoint operating system. SmartSketch's new breakthrough drawing technology makes it ideally suited for the pen-based user interface.
SmartSketch is perfect for people who want to be able to make quick sketches or polished drawings in a meeting, on a job site, or at the beach. It uses familiar tools — a pencil, an eraser, and a brush — that go beyond their traditional limits. Combined with an EO Personal Communicator, SmartSketch provides a powerful tool for communicating any idea graphically.
"SmartSketch is so innovative that traditional drawing programs are going to have to scramble to match its features," said Thom Hogan, Senior Evangelist at EO Inc. Drawing with SmartSketch is as quick and easy as drawing on a piece of paper, with the benefits of the power and flexibility of the computer. SmartSketch breaks the boundaries normally found between drawing and painting products. For example, in standard draw programs, only a complete object can be deleted, whereas in paint programs any portion of the image can be erased. With SmartSketch, an entire shape can be deleted, or any portion of an object can be erased with the Eraser tool. While the concept is simple, this represents breakthrough technology. The Brush tool is another example — with the brush the user can create a shape with back-and-forth swipes of the brush, like one would in a paint program, yet the result is a discrete object that can be moved and reshaped.
The program also provides a Pencil tool for drawing shapes. These shapes can be left in their original, rough form and then later straightened or smoothed into precise ovals, circles, rectangles, squares, triangles, etc., or the program can be set to do this smoothing and straightening immediately upon drawing the shapes. These tools are examples of how the advanced technology in SmartSketch is made accessible to its users, allowing them to work in familiar ways. In addition, SmartSketch is more "helpful" than traditional drawing applications. "SmartSketch was designed to have the flexibility to adapt to different people's drawing styles," said Jonathan Gay, VP of Development. "Some people draw rectangles with four separate strokes, while others draw rectangles using a single stroke without lifting the pen. SmartSketch will recognize both drawing styles, and automatically connect or straighten the lines when appropriate."
The company's new graphics technology allows users to easily manipulate their drawings. Most computer graphics programs have confusing handles to reshape objects, but SmartSketch allows the user to reshape by simply "grabbing and pulling" anywhere along a line or at a corner. Unlike current pen-based graphics products, SmartSketch uses bezier curves for its underlying graphics representation, which allows for precise drawings and high-quality printing.
Any object in a sketch can be edited by: reshaping it; scaling it; rotating it; flipping it; slanting it; and erasing all or parts of it. SmartSketch has several other features, including: a customizable brush for natural-looking brush strokes, grids and rulers, multiple levels of undo, translated and untranslated text, page sizes up to 100" x 100", group and ungroup, align and distribute, and variable levels of magnification.
The cellular telephone allows people to communicate from almost anywhere, but it is limited to spoken communication. "Virtually everyone has had situations where it would have been easier to communicate by drawing a picture, rather than trying to explain verbally," said Michelle Welsh, VP of Marketing. "A Personal Communicator with SmartSketch takes communication beyond voice to provide an effective tool for communicating with text and sketches."
SmartSketch's suggested retail price will be $199. The product will be available from FutureWave Software in the first quarter of 1994. Free customer support is available to all registered users.
FutureWave Software is a developer and publisher of application software for the mobile computing market, and SmartSketch is the first product to be released. FutureWave Software was founded in January 1993 to develop application software for pen-based mobile computers. It is a privately held corporation based in San Diego, Calif. NOTE: SmartSketch is a trademark of FutureWave Software Inc. All other marks are the property of their respective holders.
Visit FutureWave Software Inc. at COMDEX Booth No. L2848, Las Vegas Convention Center.
CONTACT: FutureWave Software Inc., San Diego
Michelle Welsh, 619/679-0619