Sketch-based creativity assistant

Creativity is the ability to come up with new ideas. Yet, even creative people may find themselves stuck with overused ideas, a phenomenon known as 'design fixation.' To overcome the fixation and discover fresh ideas, experts in visual design suggest sketching out the initial idea. Sketches, being abstract representations, introduce an element of ambiguity. Exploring and reinterpreting these ambiguous shapes helps break away from cliches and foster creative thinking. In our project, we introduce a computerized intelligent system that leverages sketching to assist non-designers in visual design tasks. This system assists users in reinterpreting their sketches creatively. To accomplish this, we've developed a unique semantic network called the 'Sketch Net,' which connects ambiguous sketches to multiple crowdsourced interpretations. Our contributions include 1) Sketch Net, 2) a method for generating ambiguous sketches, and 3) an intelligent system that provides diverse interpretations of the user's sketch to enhance the creative process by associating it with Sketch Net elements. The effectiveness of this assistant in boosting creativity is evaluated through a user study. The results show that the Sketch-Based Creativity Assistant significantly improves the quality of the final product.