Wacom’s Inkling Captures What You Draw On Paper Digitally

http://techcrunch.com/2011/08/30/wacom-inkling/

by camtarn • 15 years ago

57 27 15 years ago

This is amazing, I feel it's uses can go far beyond just drawings.

It looks well executed (particularly the new layer feature) but what's new about this device? These digital pens have existed for years.

camtarn3• 15 years ago

I hadn't realized quite how many of the special-paper-free digital pens were out there now - last time I'd looked, the pens needed special paper and used a pen-tip camera for sensing (basically a special-purpose optical mouse).

Here's a collection of them: http://digital-pen-review.toptenreviews.com/

Interestingly, the last three pens in the comparison table all do look very similar to Wacom's offering. I wonder whether the Wacom pen is using the same technology (or is maybe even made by the same manufacturer behind the scenes?)

In any case, I reckon the Wacom name will help them sell, possibly helping promote them to artists wanting to sketch on the move rather than (as the linked comparison mentions) for business purposes.

hopeless2• 15 years ago

I was obviously just as ignorant about these newer digital pens!

zupatol• 15 years ago

My guess is wacom managed to improve the quality enough to make it usable for artists. The other pens seem to be mainly useful for ocr, and are marketed as tools for taking notes.

The automatic vectorization of the drawings is also nice.

hopeless2• 15 years ago

Most of those digital pens used specially printed paper which had machine-readable dot patterns. This looks like it takes a different approach compatible with any paper/notebook.

Sounds like a great toy for those people who like to sketch notes in meetings etc. I wonder if it can replay the drawing as an animation?

ricardobeat• 15 years ago

No they didn't. See this list: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2626833

brudgers• 15 years ago

The drawbacks I see are that the package is a bit oversized to fit in a pocket and only a single type of tip and ink. Both of these would tend to create "gadget friction."

[compare to http://www.amazon.com/Winsor-Newton-Cotman-Sketchers-Pocket/...]

iwwr• 15 years ago

This is not new. Staedler has had something like this for some time

http://www.staedtler.com/digital_pen.Staedtler

On the other hand, I'd like to hear some impressions from people who tried this themselves.

codingsolo• 15 years ago

I know what I want for Christmas! I am not an artist but like to doodle. I have an Intuos4 but being tethered to my computer and confined to a graphics editing program is a lot of overhead for me (not an artist) when I want to get something digital done. I can see this being able to freely create web site mockups and wireframes, rough logo work, annotations, etc. I think this will fit into my workflow. I like the promise of being able to utilize this without having to be near my computer.

geuis• 15 years ago

On a side note, what are the trademark issues with this product considering there is a company called Inkling?

adam• 15 years ago

Ironic since we were in the market first as Inkling (http://inklingmarkets.com) in 2006, then the well-funded "Inkling" (inkling.com) came along who ignored our claims about trademark, and now the Wacom Inkling tablet. Guess it's just a cool name. :)

wavesplash2• 15 years ago

A quick search on uspto.gov shows Inkling, Inc. abandoned their trademark filing from 2006? If so, Inkling.com had every right to reclaim the mark.

wavesplash2• 15 years ago

Trademark is broken down into classes of goods and services. You can have multiple companies having the same trademark name in different classes. Check http://uspto.gov for details.

ben_straub2• 15 years ago

I worked for Wacom up until 4 months ago, and I was involved in the development of this product. I'm not sure how much I can talk about this without violating NDA, but I'll try.

Normal Wacom tablets use electromagnetic resonance (EMR) to both power the electronics in the pen and to locate it in 3D space. Inkling uses the same technology for pressure sensitivity in the pen tip, but location is performed by a different method, using the base (the part you clip on). It's not nearly as accurate as EMR coupling (the tablets are accurate to less than 1mm), but the ability to record an ink drawing is pretty awesome. No matter how well natural media is simulated, it's never going to be actual real paper and ink.

RexRollman• 15 years ago

Thanks for the info. This sounds like a really interesting product.

lobster_johnson2• 15 years ago

But if this new pen is not accurate to less than 1mm, then it will not work for sketches like the example drawing (in the link). 1mm is a lot when dealing with drawings of that scale.

xiaoma• 15 years ago

My bamboo fun tablet is one of the best purchases I've ever made. It was 80% of as good as using a real pencil and probably 90% of as good as a paint brush or air brush.

I absolutely love Wacom and will be in line to buy one of these as soon as I can scrounge up the money to do it on my meager Chinese salary!

lobster_johnson2• 15 years ago

Those are fun, but as an artist I could never deal with the mental dissonance of my eyes watching the result on the screen while drawing somewhere else.

The Wacom Cintiq (http://www.wacom.com/en/Products/Cintiq.aspx) fixes that by providing a pressure-sensitive display, so you see what you draw. Apparently Pixar is using a ton of these. But it's also hideously expensive.

misuba4• 15 years ago

How does this beat having a scanner?

threepointone• 15 years ago

Layers, automatic vectors, pressure sensitive tips... not really stuff that you can trivially replicate with just paper/pen.

misuba4• 15 years ago

There are few real graphic artists who are working with "just" paper and pen. They have favorite pens, favorite papers. Brush pens are plenty sensitive to pressure, and they're around $17 for a good one.

So far the closest thing to a real argument for this product is the vector thing, but I am having trouble envisioning what that really enables. It could enable a lot of cool stuff, but until there is a more concrete sell than "something cool," not a lot of artists are gonna bite.

ben_straub2• 15 years ago

This is actually the question the product answers. A lot of graphic designers like to start designing on paper, then move to Illustrator or PS for the final work. The classic way to do this is to scan in your sketch and make it a layer, and essentially start over with digital art on top of it.

Inkling lets you split your sketch into multiple layers as you're sketching it. Say you're drawing a character for a game, and the character can be carrying things. You can sketch the two together, with overlapping lines, but keep the character and the carried thing on separate layers. All without having to find the boundaries and snip carefully to separate them in PS.

misuba4• 15 years ago

Why wouldn't you just draw the thing the character is carrying a few millimeters away, and save $150? (Bear in mind, these are artists we're talking about; that money matters.)

camtarn3• 15 years ago

Sheer convenience, too: if you draw with this pen, the drawing is already scanned, rather than having to dig out the scanner (which, in our household, lives in a pile of other gadgets under a desk) and fiddle with TWAIN settings to get stuff into Photoshop. Plus you can work on the move if you have your laptop and a sketchpad with you - of course, you can do this with a regular graphics tablet, but from my (hobby) artist partner's comments, it's much more fun drawing on paper than on a tiny graphics tablet.

misuba4• 15 years ago

Agreed about drawing on paper, but is convenience worth $200 to a target audience that has probably already paid for a scanner?

Wacom’s Inkling Captures What You Draw On Paper Digitally

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