TabletDraw 0.4

Drawing with a tablet has always been a struggle. Typically, drawing programs (like most software) are designed to be used with a mouse. Tablet support is usually thrown in as an afterthought, under the theory that a pointing device will obey the same principles as a mouse. The result: an experience which only superficially captures the feel of a pen, while ignoring the subtle nuances.

Abandoning the traditional mouse-oriented paradigm, TabletDraw is designed from the ground up for use with a drawing tablet - specifically focusing on the realism of the drawing experience. Instead of setting brush thickness based solely on pen pressure, TabletDraw uses a combination of factors including speed and pen pressure to create a realistic pen-and-paper feel. The bottom line: If you can draw on a piece of paper, you can draw with TabletDraw.

One of the biggest differences between drawing with a mouse vs. a tablet is that a mouse is best suited for slow, deliberate curves while a pen lends itself to fast strokes. Unfortunately, your USB port isn’t always able to keep up with these fast strokes, leaving the computer to connect the dots.

Most programs do this with straight lines, leaving the user with a jagged approximation instead of a smooth curve. Other programs use smoothing algorithms which ignore fine detail and degrade performance. TabletDraw uses SwiftCurve technology to accurately and efficiently represent the curves you draw without bringing your hardware to its knees.

The standard coloring method for drawing software has become the paint bucket, a tool which fills any enclosed monotone area with a solid color. And for many applications, the paint bucket does a great job. But when it comes hand-drawn artwork, the paint bucket is simply too inflexible.

Art drawn by hand often lacks specific color boundaries, and even when these boundaries exist, they may not be enclosed by an outline. Worse yet, the paint bucket never seems to get quite close enough to the outline, leaving a white halo between color and line.

TabletDraw makes coloring easy and natural by tossing out the paint bucket in favor of Ink mode (toggled with the I key). In this mode, colors are blend much as they do with markers, allowing you to color over your outlines without obscuring them.

In addition to Undo, TabletDraw features an erase to sealed mode which allows you to seal the current image so that you can erase back to it later. Use it for correcting mistakes, gradients, and more.