Digitizer/Mouse
Mark Schlichenmeyer
a digitizer over a mouse in AutoCAD 13 and up. My boss has been told by
another engineer in our facility that change all are drafters (which have
been using AcadLT 95 for 3 years) to Full Acad 13+ and digitizers will
increase their proframance. I believe his advise is incorrect can any one
concur, or am I wrong.
Thanks in advance for your help.
Timothy B. Storey
for the programmable buttons and the absolute positioning, but I do not pick
commands off of the tablet. Other people don't like the loss of desk space,
or feel that (2) or (3) buttons and icons are fine. After a long day and /
or under deadline pressure, I eventually revert to typing in the (2)
keystroke macros that I have been dragging around since about R9.
I don't think you can purchase R13 anyway.
If your company upgrades or purchases Autocad seats, I think that eventually
there will be a performance increase, but the drafters need to be trained
for the new features. Just throwing a new software package at the drafting
staff will not bring about any productivity improvements.
Tim Storey
Mark Schlichenmeyer wrote in message
<7s9022$gb...@adesknews2.autodesk.com>...
Walt Mather
and novice cad users tend to shy away from them because they're intimidated
by the setup and customization involved to get real production work out of
them.
But imho you'll find one at the right hand of most "real" cad production
users. By that I mean those of us that make a living doing 50+ hours a week
of cad production; day in day out, all year long.
It's like playing a instrument; left & right hands working in harmony while
the eyes never leave the sheet music. With a 16 button cursor and a good
customized digitizer with something like visual tablet installed, the right
hand is capable of many times more functions than a mouse user. (We can
expect the flames any time now)
It's like comparing a Fischer-Price 12 key, plastic piano to say, a
baby-grand; all things being equal - including talent and the piece trying
to be played, what's going to produce the best results?
Mark Schlichenmeyer <mschlic...@iteqinc.com> wrote in message
news:7s9022$gb...@adesknews2.autodesk.com...
Paul Turvill
mouse and the Windows GUI has never used a tablet correctly.
__
Walt Mather <Walt...@ConnRiver.net> wrote in message
news:7sajfg$ka...@adesknews2.autodesk.com...
Timothy B. Storey
<snip>
>But imho you'll find one at the right hand of most "real" cad production
>users.
Some of us still have the digitizer at the left hand, the rodent substitute
at the right, forehead for keyboard usage......
Tim Storey
Walt Mather
out of the office once after a long, hellacious day and my wife asked what
the word "tyuio ghjkl" embedded in my forehead stood for.
Timothy B. Storey <ti...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:7sb06l$ll...@adesknews2.autodesk.com...
Neil Stone
love to be able to continue using our digitizers - we have taken a real hit in
productivity since going to AutoCAD2000, because we can't get our digitizers to
work with it.
So if anyone is successfully using a digitizer (Summasketch III or GTCO
Sketchmaster) with A2000 and Windows 98, we'd love to know how you do it. We
know all about Wintab etc..etc.. - just tell us what software you use, and if
there are any tricks. I am talking about using the digitizer as a pointing
device, just like in DOS - no F keys to change the modes, no lockups, no dead
screen areas. Suggestions like using R14 or NT are not wanted.
Walt Mather wrote:
> Don't believe it when they tell you digitizers are a thing of the past. New
> and novice cad users tend to shy away from them because they're intimidated
> by the setup and customization involved to get real production work out of
> them.
>
> But imho you'll find one at the right hand of most "real" cad production
> users. By that I mean those of us that make a living doing 50+ hours a week
> of cad production; day in day out, all year long.
>
> It's like playing a instrument; left & right hands working in harmony while
> the eyes never leave the sheet music. With a 16 button cursor and a good
> customized digitizer with something like visual tablet installed, the right
> hand is capable of many times more functions than a mouse user. (We can
> expect the flames any time now)
>
> It's like comparing a Fischer-Price 12 key, plastic piano to say, a
> baby-grand; all things being equal - including talent and the piece trying
> to be played, what's going to produce the best results?
>
> Mark Schlichenmeyer <mschlic...@iteqinc.com> wrote in message
> news:7s9022$gb...@adesknews2.autodesk.com...
> > Can any one supply me with information regarding the pros and cons to
> using
> > a digitizer over a mouse in AutoCAD 13 and up. My boss has been told by
> > another engineer in our facility that change all are drafters (which have
> > been using AcadLT 95 for 3 years) to Full Acad 13+ and digitizers will
> > increase their proframance. I believe his advise is incorrect can any one
> > concur, or am I wrong.
> >
> > Thanks in advance for your help.
> >
> >
--
Neil Stone
Esco Engineering
Check out our home page - http://www.mnsi.net/~pas/esco.htm
Timothy B. Storey
You really ought to get rid of Win 98. NT is a better system for Acad2000,
and the interface is pretty much the same. Anyway, your message doesn't say
if you have tried Virtual Tablet. I use this with NT and A2K, (and R14) and
have no problems with it. There is a demo on the Autodesk web site at
http://www.autodesk.com/support/filelib/acad14/vti32.htm
Good Luck,
Tim Storey
Neil Stone wrote in message <37EA64CD...@MNSi.net>...
Wm.J.Townsend
I now have CalComp and Wacom tablets running perfectly under both Win98 and NT4
using their current WinTab drivers. Probably not what you wanted to hear but new
tablets are pretty inexpensive compared to the time you'll spend failing to get the
old ones to work in the new environment. ACAD will happily use whatever tablet you
can get the operating system to see. -Bill
Walt Mather
and running in A2K yet as I'm too busy maintaining production in R-12 Dos to
keep food on the table. The DB III seemed to install and work fine though.
Just followed the manual, installed the driver, picked it within Acad and
it worked. I also have Visual Tablet for R2000 installed, which, except
for their fancy buttons not working, works ok too.
Walt Mather
Neil Stone <jns...@MNSi.net> wrote in message
news:37EA64CD...@MNSi.net...
> It sounds as though there are quite a few digitizer enthusiasts, and we
would
> love to be able to continue using our digitizers - we have taken a real
hit in
> productivity since going to AutoCAD2000, because we can't get our
digitizers to
> work with it.
>
> So if anyone is successfully using a digitizer (Summasketch III or GTCO
Kurt Westerlund
you folks use all those buttons w/o looking at your hands. I admit that the
accuracy is nicer on the digitizers. If you use 2000 w/ a digitizer you are
missing the biggest productivity boost that acad has ever released, the
WHEEL MOUSE ! Say goodbye to zoom and pan, they are right there on the
wheel all the time, always transparent. That has to be about 300 key
strokes / mouse picks I don't have to do every day. I use shift+ and ctrl+
and shift-ctrl+ mouse picks to get quite a few commands w/o looking down at
all. I bet none of you can hit the bottom row middle left tiny digitizer
button w/ 95% accuracy w/o looking.
It all does come down to what you are used to. People are always faster if
they don't have to re-learn how to do the same thing with a different
key/pick sequence, but true productivity boosters like the wheel do help
mouse users more quickly. Making a draftsperson switch for admin.
convenience is lazy and counterproductive.
If anybody made a more ergo button layout w/ the wheel on a digitizer I'd
join you all in a second but until then I'll fight any cad manager tooth and
nail if they tried to take away my mouse.
My $0.02. Thetas about all it worth.
KW
Beating away on my FischerPrice but making surprisingly good fast sound.
Andrew D. Smith
a second." Try the new Wacom Tablets with the Intuos tools. The puck has 5
buttons (can be programmed for 3 functions each, if you can remember all of
them!), is ergonomically designed, AND has a thumb wheel that blows away the
MS Intellimouse for ACAD functionality. The wheel is 15 times larger, so
very accurate zooming is possible very quickly. I miss my zoom "guess" about
50% of the time with the Intellimouse.
The button layout is nice, and flush. No little rubber mole hills sticking
up on the puck. The 3 main buttons are about as large as the Logitech
buttons, and in the same positions. Behind those three buttons are two
slimmer "horizontally" aligned buttons. I've set the buttons to left=select,
middle=pan, right=enter, 4=double esc.(to cancel out of grip editing) and
5=tracking. That's about all my brain can remember now, in time I'll go to a
second function for each button.
The bonus you'll get if you get the 9x12 or larger tablets is the Intuos
Pen. Now, if you want to talk about "natural" drafting, this is it. Sketch
things out, flip the pen over, and erase something. In graphics programs,
the tip is pressure sensitive. Great way to get all those custom looks
without having to spend hours editing line characteristics.
Give it a try, you'll love the tools and their customizability.
--
Andrew D. Smith
Facilities Design
General Services Division
NCDOT
Kurt Westerlund <ku...@alpenenvirons.com> wrote in message
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