AIDEA

An AI-powered creative assistant that transforms simple sketches into professional visualizations. AIDEA bridges the gap between imagination and execution, helping anyone communicate their ideas visually – regardless of drawing skills.

Project

Invention Design 2

Duration

4th Semester

Institution

HfG Schwäbisch Gmünd

Team

Enes Cilingir

Jannik Fauser

Maurice Cadau

My Contributions

Product Design

Concept Development

User Experience

Logo Design

Prototyping

The Problem

Ideas often fail not because of lack of imagination, but because of implementation barriers.

In an experiment by designer Gianluca Gimini, over 500 people were asked to draw a bicycle from memory. Only about 25% could draw it correctly – 75% instead created creative but inaccurate variations.

We see the potential to revolutionize how people sketch, refine, and share ideas – regardless of drawing abilities, through a symbiosis of creativity and artificial intelligence.

How many brilliant ideas have vanished from our minds simply because we couldn't express them visually? How many groundbreaking concepts remain trapped in our thoughts, waiting for the right tool to set them free?

AIDEA Overview

Who Is AIDEA For?

AIDEA is designed for everyone who has ideas but struggles to bring them to life visually. Whether you're a student brainstorming for a presentation, a professional sketching out concepts in meetings, or someone who simply wants to explore their creativity – AIDEA makes visual thinking accessible to all. You don't need to be an artist; you just need to have ideas worth sharing.

AIDEA Target Users

What Makes AIDEA Special

AIDEA is more than a tool – it's your creative assistant. It understands, complements, suggests – without taking control away from you.

The Smart Pen Concept

This smart pen brings AI directly into your hand – no menus, no distractions. Hold the button down and it helps you draw: lines become clearer, shapes more consistent. One click refines your sketch, a double-click undoes the last step. You decide what happens – the AI supports you, not the other way around.

AIDEA Smart Pen 3D Mockup

The pen features advanced pressure sensitivity, gesture recognition, and seamless integration with our AI system. Every stroke you make is analyzed and enhanced, turning your natural drawing movements into precise, professional lines while preserving your unique artistic style.

From Rough to Refined – Instantly

Messy lines, disproportionate shapes, or duplicate contours? No problem. The AI Refiner recognizes weaknesses in your sketch and cleans them up automatically – either live while drawing or manually with a button press. Your style remains intact, but the form becomes clear and precise.

Sketch smarter – with one button

Like a second hand that shows you how your sketch could continue – before you even know it yourself. When you hold the pen button long, AIDEA recognizes what you're planning and places a transparent, style-appropriate guide line under your hand. You see a possible continuation – for example, how a roof might run or what a window could look like – and can trace or ignore this line. It's not autopilot – it's creative co-sketching. In your style. In real time.

One Sketch – Many Views

The modes in AIDEA aren't rigid editing phases, but flexible views of your sketch – they automatically adapt depending on how far along you are. You switch between Sketch, Color, Image, and CAD to see your idea from different perspectives – as a sketch, colored concept, realistically interpreted image, or 3D model. Your original remains preserved – each view helps you work purposefully without disrupting the creative process.

Locked-In – Your Creative Version History

With the Locked-Function, you save targeted intermediate states of your sketch – so-called Locks. These "checkpoints" function like an intelligent version system.

You can jump back to any saved state, compare variants or take new directions from there. Ideal for creative branches: Design different styles, try alternative roof shapes or perspectives – without losing your previous work. Each Lock saves not only the graphic, but also the mode (e.g. Sketch, Color or CAD), so you can specifically track developments. AIDEA thinks of the design process not as linear, but as a branched path. And you decide which way to continue.

Smart Tools That Think With You

These tools feel familiar – but they're smarter, more flexible, and built to support your creative flow with the power of AI.

AIDEA Tools Interface

The Sketch Pen smooths your lines in real time, adapting to your drawing style. The intelligent Eraser removes elements while AI regenerates spaces naturally. The Lasso Tool moves elements with structural awareness, while AI Assist provides context-aware suggestions.

For precision, the Ruler Tool creates accurate lines, Grid Toggle provides alignment, and Shape Tool adds forms that integrate seamlessly. The Symmetry Tool mirrors your work for patterns and facades.

Real-time Collaboration

Design together, wherever you are. AIDEA lets two people work on the same sketch simultaneously from different locations. One person sketches the main building while the other adds details like gardens or driveways – both seeing changes in real time. The app handles synchronization seamlessly, so you never accidentally overwrite each other's work. Save different versions, compare ideas, or merge the best elements from both designers into one final concept.

Interface Design

When you open AIDEA, you won't find cluttered toolbars or confusing menus. The interface gets out of your way so you can focus on what matters most: bringing your ideas to life. Every tool is exactly where you expect it, and the drawing canvas takes center stage.

AIDEA User Interface

The design philosophy is simple: remove barriers between your imagination and the screen. No hunting through nested menus or overwhelming feature lists. Just pick up your stylus and start sketching – the interface adapts to support your creative flow, not interrupt it.

Prototype & Implementation

We wanted to know: How realistic can our prototype become today? Using ComfyUI and advanced AI models, we built a working prototype that demonstrates AIDEA's core capabilities.

This video shows the technology behind AIDEA's Picture Mode – how our AI generates images that stay precisely true to your original sketch. Using ComfyUI workflows and advanced diffusion models, we developed a system that understands your drawing's structure and intent, then creates photorealistic interpretations while preserving every essential line and proportion.

This approach opens new possibilities for how we think, sketch, and collaborate. When AI becomes a thoughtful assistant rather than an automated replacement, it empowers designers to explore ideas they never could before, making the creative process more intuitive and accessible to everyone.

Conclusion

Creating AIDEA taught us that the future of design isn't about replacing human creativity – it's about amplifying it. We built a tool that understands your intent and helps bring your ideas to life faster, while keeping you in complete creative control.

AIDEA started as a simple question: What if everyone could turn their ideas into visual reality? Through months of research, prototyping, and testing, we discovered that the answer isn't about perfecting technology – it's about understanding people. We created more than just a smart drawing tool; we built a bridge between imagination and expression. Every sketch tells a story, and AIDEA helps ensure that story gets told exactly as you envision it. This project showed us that when AI truly serves creativity rather than controlling it, extraordinary things become possible for everyone.