N-Trig Tablet Not Recognized

[_nick_caylor_]

A few other HP and Dell tablet PC users and I have noticed that photoshop does not recognize the pressure sensitivity of the N-trig tablets. I bought this laptop thinking that it was Wacom because I knew it was pressure sensitive (which it is on a couple other programs) so I was a little surprised when I found out that there was more than one type of digitizer pen.

Is there a work around, patch or some other way to get Photoshop and Elements to recognize it?

I contacted N-Trig already and they basically said it's the software's issue.

[Guest]

Nope. There are no swear words by Chris or anybody in this thread. Making false statements is just totally wrong and unprofessional.

[TheoWerewolf]

It's a matter of degree. I'm sure I saw the word 'crap' used and in that context, it's not exactly a polite word. Perhaps I misread it.

Advice, when given sincerely and with an intent to improve a volatlile situation is never 'unprofessional.' It's the difference between trying to make a bad situation better or trying to calm down the situation. I think it's fair to say that some of Chris' reactions have been rather aggrevated. You may feel it's justified, but nonetheless, it doesn't help the situation, does it?

[Guest]

Yes, you did not read the sentence structure correctly. It was a observation statement directed at no one.

Everything looks pretty calm to me after the 14th of June (not a single post). Everything is nice and calm.

[D__McCahill]

Dunno if you will get it to work. As Chris said, Photoshop wrote generic links, and Wacom made their device work with them. (Not Adobe working to the Wacom standard). If N-Trig is not interested in doing the same, then you are out of luck.

[_Smartweb_Studios_]

Hi. I just recently purchased this same laptop as well and feel let down by N-trig. Since hearing from other users in the same situation that N-trig believes it is an Adobe issue, I have started looking into developing a workaround to allow N-trig users to still use pen pressure in Photoshop. Hypothetically, do you believe it would be possible to develop a .net application to read the x/y coordinates of the digitizer and the pen pressure value, and then somehow communicate them to Photoshop? I have looked into the Tablet PC SDK examples and pen pressure works fine on these, so it seems that as long as I could find a way to have the program run in the background, and have Photoshop interpret these values, it should hypothetically be possible. What are your thoughts? Thanks!

[Chris Cox]

Not easily - you'd have to patch into the Windows tablet drivers to supply the pressure and other information correctly. (location comes from that API or just mouse coordinates)

If N-trig published documentation on their hardware, it would be possible for someone else to write a driver that correctly communicates with the Windows tablet and mouse APIs.

Of course, it would be fastest if N-trig fixed their own driver.

[_Smartweb_Studios_]

I have downloaded the latest version of the Windows SDK and am looking over the various tablet examples that are available. I am not very familiar with .net, but I believe that I am capable of eventually getting a program running that can generate x/y values for the pen location and a reading of the pressure sensitivity. If I am able to get this program running, how would I go about feeding this information into Photoshop so that is is compliant with the pen pressure brush settings? I appreciate all of the help you have provided so far. You guys are much more helpful than the N-Trig support staff. Thanks!

[Chris Cox]

You can't feed it directly to Photoshop - you have to implement the tablet driver code that feeds the values to the Windows tablet APIs, which Photoshop then uses to get the information.

[_Smartweb_Studios_]

In the Windows SDK tablet examples the N-Trig digitizer is able to produce varying line thickness based on sensitivity. Do you think these Windows SDK tablet examples are using the API you are talking about or are these two completely different things? I'm sorry if I am way off here, it just seems like it shouldn't be that hard to come up with a way to get the pressure sensitivity to work in Photoshop if pressure sensitivity works in the Windows SDK examples and in the different Microsoft applications. Thanks for being so patient. I am very new to this type of application work.

[Chris Cox]

I suspect the SDK example is using the more limited pressure API, not the "kitchen sink and more" API designed to deal with things like pen angle, rotation, etc. Yes, Microsoft has multiple API hooks for tablets.

[_ptmhs_]

N-trig in Alias Sketchbook is workable and support pressure sensitivity:

maybe, it working with basic function now,

maybe, photoshop needs requirement too much to do same thing

[_hajar_]

Yeah, this is such a thorn in the flesh. Do refer to this post as well http://www.touchsmartcommunity.com/forum/thread/423/TouchSmart-tx2-1020-with-Photoshop-Corel-ARRRGH-PLEASE-HELP/;jsessionid=61705C16D82F34EF17E25FB8AA2713C0?page=2. We should really get the manufacturers to stand up and take notice, and add a patch so the drivers could work!

[_nick_caylor_]

N-Trig will supposedly put the SDK for the DuoSense on their website at http://www.n-trig.com/Usa/Content.aspx?Page=SupportSDK. But it has been several weeks with the same message so I'm not too hopeful. Also, the DuoSense SDK probably won't be the same for everyone - does the Latitude XT use Duosense? Not sure.

I would LOVE to get Photoshop up and running with this sensitivity bit. It's pretty hilarious as HP offers Photoshop Elements as a software bundle with the computer and it doesn't even work properly!

[_Smartweb_Studios_]

I just got an e-mail from the people at N-Trig after I tried posting a comment in the n-trig.com support section regarding the lack of pressure sensitivity in Photoshop. They didn't end up posting it to the site to be viewed publicly. I am guessing this is because in the comment I suggested people buy Wacom enabled tablet PC's until N-Trig fixed their pressure issues in Photoshop.

Here is the e-mail I received:

*****************************************

Dear Tim,

Thank you for your email.

Regarding your issues concerning pressure, please note that the pressure data is publically available and used by most applications, including Windows Office, Windows Journal, ArtRage and so on. It can therefore easily be extracted and used.

For any further issues with your computer, it would probably be worth contacting HP.

Debbie Gold Hadar
Business Development
N-trig Ltd.

*****************************************

She says the pressure data is available for most applications, and then proceeds to only list Microsoft applications and an obscure graphics program that no one has ever heard of. Instead of then offering a helpful suggestion on how to fix my problem, she directs me to contact HP with any issues.

[_nick_caylor_]

Very similar to the email I got, though mine was longer. I contacted them a week or so ago in the same way that Tim did: through the support section of their website in the comment area. I have replied and sent emails to n-trig, but the only one that has received a response is the one to the comments area. I recommend that everyone here send N-trig comments about the problems they are having. I'm sure people at N-trig use Adobe so it's pretty odd that this issue hasn't been worked out.

******************************************
Dear Nick,

Thank you for your mail. Were very glad to hear that you enjoy working with DuoSense.

DuoSense does support full pressure-sensitivity. For example, if you open Microsoft Journal, and select Tools => Options => Pen Settings, there is a Pressure Sensitivity checkbox which can be selected, and doing so enables full pressure sensitivity in all supported applications.

Other examples of applications that support pressure sensitivity with DuoSense, are the Windows Office applications, the ArtRage graphical application to name but two.

Regarding your issue concerning specific software that does not support DuoSense pressure sensitivity, such as Adobe, we recommend that you consult with the Customer Support department of that softwares manufacturer.

Thank you for visiting our website and taking the trouble to contact us.

Kind regards,

Debbie Gold Hadar
Business Development
N-trig Ltd.

[Guest]

"Windows Office" maybe she meant Microsoft Office?

[Chris Cox]

This sounds a lot like they didn't test their drivers with professional applications. I'll bet they only did the simple (incomplete) API and not the full information API.

If Photoshop isn't seeing pressure from their device, it's because their device isn't providing pressure information to all the Windows APIs correctly.

[_nick_caylor_]

It looks as if Wintab API has been involved in some sort of legal entangles (http://www.pointing.com/Wintab.html) and it isn't clear that N-trig is even using Wintab. If they were, pressure sensitivity would work in GIMP and Inkscape, as these two programs use GTK+ which is written for Wintab API.

In fact, though N-trig hasn't gotten back to me, I suspect that it's drivers are written with TabletPC InkCanvas API

(http://download.microsoft.com/download/2/e/1/2e169763-03fc-4822-a7a4-abe753e526e3/pdc_2005_windowsvista%20-%20tabletenabledapplications.ppt)

If that were the case, does anyone know if that would prevent Adobe from recognizing the presence of the tablet?

[_Jarem_]

This is the only thing keeping from purchasing Dell's new XT2 :(

[Guest]

tell dell that jarem! i'm sure they'd love that information.

[Chris Cox]

Nick - I think you've got the right idea.

[_Smartweb_Studios_]

Chris - What is the exact API hook called that Photoshop looks to for input from a stylus? Do you know of any documentation that is available from Adobe for companies looking to make their products fully supported by Photoshop in the area of pressure sensitivity? I am trying to get as much information together as possible so that N-Trig won't have to do all the leg work if we can actually convince them to put out these new drivers. Thanks.

[Chris Cox]

No, Adobe has no documentation on the tablet APIs we use. We shouldn't have to document that - the tablet maker should just implement the platform APIs for tablets. (but it sounds like this company may not realize that Windows has more than one API)

[_boobiestar1234_]

ok, so what api is adobe listening for? this would be the class or events that n-trig would have to dispatch events for, correct? if we know what ps is looking for then we can contact n-trig and have them support that api. tell us what to tell n-trig and everybody can mass email them and hp with this letter. thanks

[Chris Cox]

Tell them to support the full Windows tablet APIs, including Wintab.