Can you use a tablet as a cintiq-like device?

So your gonna keep it dual screen and make a new drafting table for it? That's so awesome.
I wish it was easier to use a newer high color gamut screen, but this is pretty darn cool.

 

I'll have to see what configurations work best.

I tried stacking the two screens one above the other for a big, tall canvas. It's pretty cool, especially with comic format pages, (tall, not wide). That configuration means I won't be able to put my keyboard above the screen the way I am used to, so I was thinking of picking up one of those split keyboards and putting the two halves to either side of the tall canvas.

Though Windows 7. . . Wow. There's a bit of a learning curve there. I can't get it to play nice with my email client and a few other things. Also, I'd like to tweak either the Teensy and/or the Intuos 2 driver a little; it doesn't map quite as steadily at the top edge of the screen as the old Penabled system does, but I'm sure that's just going to be a matter of ironing things out a bit.

But man! I love that I can now do canvas rotations and such in PS, and when I get a free few hours, I'm looking forward to playing with Artrage and some simulated watercolor work with all my new modern computing power!

Vast fields of exploration await!

But now. . . Stardrop needs inking.

 

Dude! (That's it man, I'm in awe of your perseverance and talent for putting this together.)

 

That is just awesome and a tribute to your doggedness.

Better get ordering Tecra M4 screens before they all disappear!

 

Hi guys, what is a cintiq-like device?

 

A cintiq is Wacom's signature line of draw-on-screen monitors that only work when connected to a computer, they are not computers on their own. They come in a variety of sizes, much larger surface to work on than tabletPC's are. They are VERY expensive and highly coveted by artists who don't posses the budget.

Mark (thatcomicsguy) is succesfully piecing together ways to achieve a large drawing screen with Wacom technology on a fraction of the budget needed to buy a cintiq. He is running those 2 tabletPC monitors (with Wacom digitizers built in) off of a desktop, making them essentially a Ciniq-like (alike to a cintiq) device.

hope that clears up any confusion

 

Amazing! Congratulations! Surely, I can't be the only one wondering if there is a way to make this work with 4 screens? Also what piece of music is that in the video? Believe it or not I've been trying to figure that out for years.

 

The LCD controller boards I'm using have both an HDMI and an SVGA input, so as long as the computer has both outputs and a graphics card which can pump data to both at the same time, then you can get two monitors going. There is a quality difference between them, (HDMI looks sharper), so for my two-screen build, I'm going to make the panel run on HDMI the main drawing surface and the SVGA the one where I keep tool bars and less-used drawing space.

If you wanted to get really fancy, I suppose there might be other controller boards out there which would take USB input, but I've not explored that avenue. Frankly, two screens is a lot of square inches and I had to get creative to find a way to make it all fit in a usable way on my drafting board; the big seam down the middle of the image needs to be dealt with in a way which serves rather than inhibits, and I'm pretty sure I've come up with a solution which is going to be pretty cool, but it's going to involve a split keyboard. I just ordered one and will complete the build when it arrives. For now, I'm just using a single screen. It's really nice to have so much power on this screen for the first time!

The music is a piece called "Morning Mood" by a famous dead dude named "Edvard Grieg".

 

Thank you... so much. You have no idea how much that has been bothering me! How do you find the name of a piece of music that you can just barely hear an echo of in your head and can't seem to hum worth a damn? Evidently everything of use can be found out in this forum. No wonder it is my favorite place to lurk.

 

Okay, so I finally had some glass cut, the split keyboard I'd ordered finally arrived, and I bought another few sheets of plywood and a fresh tin of polyurethane and got to work. This build is *very* close to completion.

All the wooden parts of the case have been fabricated and I'm now just waiting for the urethane to dry.





-On this kind of build, I've found I like it best when the keyboard is placed above the screen; that way I can stretch out comfortably when typing rather than scrunch up like a praying mantis at a laptop. However, with the second screen in place, that kind of keyboard config wasn't going to be possible without coming up with a new idea. I pondered for a while and finally decided on a split keyboard. This is the one I picked up, from Kinesis.


The wire between the two halves was not long enough, so I cut it in the middle and soldered on an extra foot of extension. This was a somewhat more demanding endeavor than I'd anticipated. I'd been expecting maybe 4 or so wires under the insulation. There were 20, all super-thin. Ugh. 40 solder joints and a lot of squinting later. . , I got it to work. First try, too. Keyboards are pretty solid technology; hard to screw up.

I finished off and programmed the second Teensy for the second Tecra LCD, and that's all ready to go.

I also cracked open the power supply for the NJYtouch controller and ran a second power cable from it. I felt it would be a bit silly to buy a second power brick when I was fairly certain that one would be fine for both. It is. No pictures of that, because I didn't think of it at the time.

So all the parts are ready and waiting for the paint to dry. I'll post some pictures of the finished product when I've got it all together.