DRAW.CHAT - Virtual Classroom

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  Creating a new room is as simple as 1 click

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  DRAW.CHAT - Virtual Classroom

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  more possibilities

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  Sharing whiteboard as URL

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  Real-time collaboration

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  You can draw over PDF or Image files

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  Draw.Chat provides the option to customize the virtual whiteboard to your needs and put it on your website (https://draw.chat/advanced.html)

Inspiration

Working with paper seems to be an easy way to share information. Nothing appears simpler than giving out a copy of the report or writing down the shopping list on a blank sheet of paper. My aim is to deliver virtual paper over Internet combined with advanced features. Everyone can integrate the DRAW.CHAT on own website today, providing users with new communication channel.

What it does

DRAW.CHAT is a tool for remote communication over the Internet. By inviting selected users to randomly generated address you will be able to deliver them amazing possibilities for live visual communication. Users can chat, draw, paste images, open PDF files, play videos or start an audio/video conference.

How I built it

Project has started from a game (charades) that I build for fun. After changing the approach to a more general one, the idea was transformed into a universal tool for visual communication.

Challenges I ran into

Rooms size is limited to 1000 users however when using the WebRTC audio/video function, it is worth remembering that each user must establish a direct connection with other participants, so I recommend that the conference session should not exceed 8 people. An external IP address, a broadband connection and a high-performance computer can be useful for trouble-free broadcasting. For larger groups, I suggest you to try running a YouTube video using the /play [youtube-link] command in the chat box. The video playback is synchronised with all users.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

Last week over 27K users from around the world has used DRAW.CHAT for communication during the COVID-19 pandemic. Most of the traffic was registered from schools, tutors and e-learning platforms.

What I learned

• The equally distribution of random addresses enables ways for decentralised scaling of the room system.

What's next for DRAW.CHAT

• The AI Pen - a tool which recognises and corrects handwritten shapes (triangle, rectangle, ellipse)
• Implementation of user proposals
• Adding video streaming support from TWITCH.TV, playing videos from dailymotion.com, rutube.ru, vimeo.com
• Support for moving objects and board games.

Built With

• html5
• javascript
• node.js