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The picture on the right will give you an idea of what you could do very easily, if this drawing method were available in a drawing or paint application. The right side was sketched by defining just three points and an angle at one of the points. A simple flip gives the left side.

To use a computer to sketch a smooth heart and color it in, you would need an application with a drawing method built into it that would let you very simply draw smooth curves. That's what I tried to do some years ago so I could send Valentine's cards to my grandkids. I tried ClarisWorks because that came with the Mac I was using. The result was not pretty. The freehand drawing tool made very jagged lines that I couldn't smooth out. The Bezier tool made smooth curves, but I couldn't figure out how to make the lines go where I wanted them to. When I got a later Mac with AppleWorks, it was no better. I needed a sketching tool that an amateur could use, so I invented one and got a patent on it (Patent No.: US 6,441,822). You can see the actual patent. If your web browser has trouble displaying the patent, you can look at this PDF version.

I thought that Apple would jump at the chance to build this drawing method into AppleWorks, but they weren't interested. They also have a very firm rule against considering any non-solicited suggestions. Of course, my letter to Steve Jobs himself went unanswered.

When my wife got a computer (built by one of my sons and me) that ran Windows XP, I tried out their built-in paint program. The drawing tools worked very much like Apple's, not well at all. Someone at Microsoft must have read my letter to Mr. William H. Gates, because I was contacted by their Partner group. They evaluated my demo program and decided that what they had was plenty good enough for their customers. Besides, there were a lot of graphics applications on the market for those who needed better.

One application on the market that would seem to be a good fit with this drawing method is Print Shop because it seems to be slanted towards amateur users. The Windows version has a freehand drawing tool no better than Apple's or Microsoft's. They took care of that in the Mac version: they didn't include such a tool at all.

Unfortunately, this sketching method isn't available except as a demo program. The drawing method could be designed to work with any operating system, but I have no intention of developing and marketing such a package. If you would like to try out the demo try one of these downloads. One of the versions should work on most Macs, even the newer ones that use Intel chips, or in Windows XP.

The demo can be freely passed around. In fact, that's what I'm hoping for. Since I haven't had any luck getting any of the software companies to seriously consider licensing this drawing method, I'm hoping for a little reaction from the amateurs that would like to do some original drawings on their computers.

One problem with putting the demo on this Web site is your possible concern that it might contain a virus or some other nasty critter. All I can say is that I wouldn't do something stupid like that when I'm trying to get people interested in my patent.

You will need a good imagination to see how this drawing method would be a good thing to have available, but it's one of those things that you'll probably never get if you don't ask for it. Good luck to both of us!

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