[AG-TECH] electronic whiteboards

[Jay Beavers]

The Tablet PC doesn't capture writing as just a series of mousedown(x,y)
points.  It sub-samples the pen location with an active digitizer that's
4x higher resolution than the 1024x768 display surface, adds in pen
pressure, and curve fits the ink strokes.  It also captures timing of
the pen movement in sub-strokes.  The result is a very nice looking ink
stroke which also is much easier to perform character or gesture
recognition upon.

Having implemented our 'ink on whiteboard' application using
mousedown(x,y) tracking and then re-implemented it using rich ink from
the Tablet SDK, we saw a very significant difference in quality and
acceptance of inking when rich ink was captured from an active
digitizer.

 - jcb

-----Original Message-----
From: John Shalf [mailto:jshalf at lbl.gov] 
Sent: Wednesday, October 23, 2002 2:39 PM
To: Jay Beavers
Cc: bernholdtde at ornl.gov; Osland, CD (Chris) ; ag-tech at mcs.anl.gov


On Wednesday, October 23, 2002, at 02:14  PM, Jay Beavers wrote:

> Only true if you think the quality of the captured ink is the same
> between a Mimeo sonically located ink marker and a high quality
> digitizer using an active radio located pressure sensitive pen.
Having
> compared them, I wouldn't categorize the two as equivalent.
>
> It's also very true that writing on the display surface so you can see
> what you're writing where you're writing it is very different than
> writing on a separate surface from where the ink is rendered.  Wacom
has
> a very nice combination LCD / active digitizer monitor, but its cost
> exceeds that of a Tablet PC that has 802.11b built in so you can move
> around while collaborating.

Again,
the stylus is different from the whiteboard application.  I agree a 
TablePC offers more accurate capture of drawing than a Mimeo or mouse, 
but that's an interface technology and can be treated separately from 
the issue of bundling some (any) whiteboard software with an AG that 
supports collaborative sharing of digital ink.

So I'd love to use a handheld tablet to draw on my 'wb' application 
rather than using a mouse or digital easel, but wasn't really my point.

-john

> Right,
> and graphics tablets as an input device are mostly independent of the
> whiteboard application itself.  I can use a mouse to scribble on 'wb'
or
>
> I can use my Wacom driver or I can use the e-beam mouse.  So the input
> device (as a topic of discussion) is separate from the issue of the
> software infrastructure to share our scribbling...
>
> -john
>
> On Wednesday, October 23, 2002, at 10:54  AM, bernholdtde at ornl.gov
> wrote:
>
>> On Wed, 23 Oct 2002 08:46:08 -0700  Jay Beavers wrote:
>>> Writing on whiteboards with mice is a bit of an exercise in
>>> frustration,
>>
>> But graphics tablets, which substitute for mice are easier (it still
>> takes some getting used to however) and can be had for $100-200 and
>> up.  Tablet PCs would be better, but cost O(10x) more.
>> --
>> David E. Bernholdt                   |   Email: bernholdtde at ornl.gov
>> Oak Ridge National Laboratory        |   Phone: +1 (865) 574 3147
>> http://www.csm.ornl.gov/~bernhold/   |   Fax:   +1 (865) 574 0680
>
>
>