Knowing.NET

Digitizer Wishes

I had a fascinating lunch with Steve Caldwell (CEO) and Rodney Standage (Major Account Sales) of FinePoint Innovations yesterday....They wanted to know what I thought was important in a Tablet digitizer....They were curious as to what ways people would use tilt information. To them it's not hard supporting tilt, but it's a matter what it costs....If anyone has some thoughts on what they'd like to see in a Tablet digitizer, post your thoughts here or better yet on your blog. The FinePoint team is reading them. via [Incremental Blogger]

I would like fast, semi-automatic parallax correction / calibration. Accuracy is all well-and-good, but when held in the hand or rested on a lap, parallax can easily exceed 16 pixels -- bigger than many controls! However, there are only 6 or so likely eye:digitizer geometries:

  • docking station / desktop
  • held in non-writing arm
  • bottom resting on desktop, propped up with non-resting arm
  • bottom resting on lap, propped up with non-resting arm
  • resting flat on desktop
  • resting flat on lap
I should be able to store my parallax corrections / calibration for each of these geometries once and then switch between them either automatically (if tilt sensors / accelerometers are available) or with a pen gesture.
 
In some situations I want to be able to use my finger for selection, navigation, and occasional text input, and I would be willing to wear a cap on my finger to do so (just as I'm willing to wear a phone headset in certain situations).