Crosscut – Drawing Dynamic Models

Crosscut is a prototype for using a stylus and tablet to think through ideas by drawing models that can also behave dynamically. Its premise is that external representations - sketches, diagrams, physical models - do more than record thought: manipulating them helps generate understanding. Existing creative software offers computation but tends to impose fixed formats and polished-product workflows, while conventional programming offers flexibility at the cost of abstract syntax and technical concerns. Crosscut aims to combine the immediacy of pen and paper with computation, so people can explore ideas without first translating them into code.

The system lets users draw shapes and add behavior directly within sketches, then reuse and nest those sketches as parts of larger models. Its visual programming approach makes behavior inspectable and keeps a model usable even when it is incomplete or produces unexpected results. Features include connecting parts through visible ports, repeating and spreading elements, and querying objects by their spatial relationships. The project’s experiments suggest that treating the program and drawing as one thing can support playful construction, reusable components, and bidirectional changes between representations. They also demonstrate how simple spatial operations and repetition can help build models. Examples range from designing a bookshelf and laser-cut joinery to rolling dice, exploring a Bézier curve, and converting temperatures. Crosscut remains an exploration of how far a visual, low-friction medium can go in supporting dynamic thought.