Inspiration
Having started University last September as a Statistics Major, I made the decision to go all out on a laptop, shortly after a few months of university I realized that taking notes is not so fun without an iPad or tablet of some kind. You go through a ridiculous amount of notebooks often one math problem taking up a page or two, and when it comes time for the exam you scatter to collect you thousands of notes distributed in god knows how many notebooks. I wasn't alone, as many students often give priority to buying a laptop and don't have the budget to buy an iPad, so often have to save up for a long time. That's why I made NotebookCV, a virtual application that gives the features and note-taking functionality of an iPad/Tablet, for PC and Laptop users, through computer vision.
What it does
Allows users to take notes and or sketch without touching their screen, keyboard, or mouse. NotebookCV uses hand gestures to recognize when to hold and when to write and make note-taking a lot easier. The user can also save, and organize all notes, and upload lecture notes and slides to annotate as well.
How I built it
I used Python and cv2 to build a working prototype and built a mock design web app on Figma.
Challenges I ran into
Overall the project was intimidating, it reminded me of Tony Stark-level technology, and I almost gave up a few times since the "paint" output was very unresponsive and unpredictable. But, luckily I overcame it.
Accomplishments that I'm proud of
I'm very proud of the working demo, given the time I had, it's responsiveness is impressive given the results I was getting before, and very happy it works pretty smoothly.
What I learned
To not give up, and that can run on no sleep.
What's next for NotebookCV!
I wish to expand the functionality of the hand gestures and add a move tool, and scale tool. I also want to work on making a working application and hopefully deploying it, so others can try it out, as I really do feel this can help a lot of people once perfected!
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