Of course, I didn’t even think to try to reproduce the error (I was too into playing with my current drawing). And now I can’t (reproduce the problem). It may have happened when trying to export while DF was still sketching? I can’t say. Sorry. Maybe no worries then.

I want to make sure the exported image expectations are met: this will export a PNG the size of the canvas with an alpha channel — the only thing that is opaque will be the actual sketch lines. There will be no background color exported (but I want to make that an option now that you can change the background color).

And yes: erasing and undos. Definitely something I want to work in for the same reasons you mentioned.

As for the wishlist items: zoom would likely be possible since the drawing is just a bunch of vector points that I’m storing, but the visual drawing output (as well as the sketch) is raster. So I will need to work some magic. I was longing for it myself in a test sketch I did last night.

And I definitely want to make it so you can save a drawing state. I’m thinking of different ways of doing this, but it’s definitely a good point you bring up.

Again, thanks for the feedback and the test drive.

Export seemed dodgy. I was only able to export one image successfully. The images I’m posting to the Flickr group were from system screen captures.
Pressing tab for the sketching palette was the only unintuitive part. Perhaps that should appear automatically when you select the Sketch mode or be an option like Clear, Hide and Start Sketching.
Multiple undos or the ability to erase when Drawing would be great. I don’t have a tablet so tracing with a mouse without making any mistakes is nearly impossible. Also, the first time through it’s hard to anticipate how the program is going to connect the dots. I ended up having to trace that image more than once because the first two times I traced too much detail in the face area and her entire head became a solid cross-hatch. Being able to erase would have saved me the trouble of retracing the whole image just to correct a small problem in one area .
On the wishlist:

Zoom. Both in Draw and Sketch modes. I’d love to zoom in on the node connections of a finished sketch and be able to output that. Are the sketch lines vector or raster?
Exporting a drawing. If I trace an image and export the sketch only to find that I’m not satisfied with the sketch I have to retrace the image before I can generate another sketch.
Even with these (minor) nit-pickings DoodleFriend gets the thumbs-up. Nice work Mike!

The new media art world is starting to gain some Momentum as a respected art form, as the ripple effect of the digital age can be felt in even the most deeply buried of traditional art mediums. The canvas is being replaced by a programming environment. Paints are now composed of classes and subroutines. The brush is now an interactive link between the viewer and the art work, forming an intimate and infintely unique experience.

Inherent in this link is also an accessibility factor. While mainly those trained or interested enough in the arts can appreciate the free-form expression behind Pollock’s gestural paintings, or recognize the social tensions that surrounded the Dada movement, most people are immediately drawn into an interactive installation. Put together some custom programming code, a camera and a projector and you can allow people to create their own gestural paintings — allow them to feel the freedom of expression that was key to Pollock’s paintings and representative of a young America that was developing her own voice. Throw together some code to interact with the Flickr API to return a collage of found images based on a submitted word or phrase — you now have a digital version of Duchamp’s “Readymades” where the value of the piece lies not in its aesthetic merit, but in the perceived relationship between the idea and the image.

I’m mostly interested in developing generative art pieces that either respond to changes in its own environment, respond to external stimuli collected from a personal “network”, or some combination thereof. I believe it would be interesting to create a visualization of all of the little bits of external data that we are bombarded with all day. Everything from the position of the sun in the sky, to how many lights are on in the house, to the temperature in a certain room can be collected and displayed in an interwoven visualization. This stimuli may even come from miles away via a networked data device. A unique pattern may emerge when, for example, a parent arrives home from work.

That’s all I have to say now. I hope to continue this discussion with you later. I may even be so inclined to share my ideas regarding a certain banana detector.