Tilt Brush


Tilt Brush is a room-scale 3D-painting virtual-reality application available from Google, originally developed by Skillman & Hackett.
The from September 2014 conveys an impression of the nature of Tilt Brush.

Controls

The application is designed for 6DoF motion interfaces in virtual reality. There is also a keyboard and mouse version, but this is not publicly available and is used only for development purposes. Users are presented with a virtual palette from which they can select from a variety of brush types and colors. Movement of the handheld controller in 3D space creates brush strokes that follow in the virtual environment. Users can export their creations of room-scale VR pieces in.fbx,.usd, and a.json format. They can also capture snapshots, animated GIF images,.mpeg videos, or render 360 degree videos.

Development

Tilt Brush was developed by Skillman & Hackett, and was in 2014 nominated for four Proto Awards, of which it won the "Best GUI" award.
Google acquired Tilt Brush in 2015, as announced April 16, 2015.
Tilt Brush was released for the HTC Vive at its launch on April 5, 2016, at no cost when pre-ordering the HTC Vive.. On February 24, 2017, Tilt VR announced it is now available on both Oculus Rift and Vive.
In the Fast Company article about Tilt Brush, one of the creators said that the idea of drawing in 3D space came from a chess game prototype: “There was a happy accident. Tilt Brush came out of an experiment with a virtual reality chess prototype, where we accidentally started painting the chess pieces in the air, and it was incredible”. In the earlier versions of Tilt Brush, it was only possible to draw on two-dimensional planes.

Reception

Ars Technica and other sites referred to Tilt Brush as the HTC Vive's killer app, praising the program's intuitive interface and the excitement of painting in three dimensions. Edward Baig of USA Today said that the program was the only one that excited him in the platform's launch lineup. Chris Suellentrop of The New York Times wrote that the program was better suited for beginners than more engineering-oriented experiences like Fantastic Contraption. In 2018, Tilt Brush was employed for the first time in mixed reality news reporting by the NBC News studio NBC Left Field.

Awards