Friday, November 14, 2008

A new favorite software & toy


Awhile back I bought myself a small little Bamboo tablet from Wacom. For those more familiar with the larger versions, this little $70 toy, is nice, it slips in my laptop bag effortlessly, and only requires a USB cable (no wall wart!). I can use it on my lap or at a desk without a problem.

The problem was, outside of Photoshop, I didn't have any good software to use it with, my laptop doesn't have TabletPC Edition on it, and most other programs (even sketch-up) are not really tablet friendly. You may recall I talked about Moi awhile back, adn while it is built for tablet use, I never have gotten into it, and I don't really need a modeling program like that at this time.

What I was originally hoping for when buying the tablet, was the ability to do some sketching, either on digital printouts (like PDF's), image files or freehand. Enter Autodesk, this summer they showed us a cheap little program called "Sketchbook Pro".

Sketchbok Pro is a nice little sketching program. Nothing fancy really, Autodesk says they benchmark against Photoshop as they develop Sketchbook. What is extremely nice is that its built for use with a tablet and stylus. The interface requires no right clicking and the gestures to manage the interface are tablet friendly. I've been using it primarily at the moment to work on our house, while we have a beautiful Revit model, it is often nice to sketch out ideas (check out the screenshot).

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