Need Help!- My Pen Tablet hates me!!

[Gollo]

Hi! I'm new on the site, and this is actually the first forum which I participate in, so let me introduce myself a little and tell you 'bout the issue that brings me here. I don't know where my question fits, in what "tab" should I post it, so I write to you just to see if you could please guide me a little. Sorry if my english ain't too good.

I'm a Spanish woodworker, I get my kicks sanding and finishing furniture in family's factory, and although CNC routing/machining isn't actually 100% my bussiness, it has come incredibly useful to me in the guitar building field, my real passion.

I can cut, rout and drill wooden solid bodies as well as the fingerboards easily, now that I've been practising for some time. But now I would like to go further and rout my own custom and more artistical drawings and inlays in my projects. In order to do so, I bought myself a pen tablet, and here is where my little trouble begins.

Our CNC, (Egurko-Ortza DART-700, equipped with Viesse software, if it rings any bell) is able to handle .dxf files, if they have been created as an AutoCad R12's dxf, so logically I do my desinging (?) work with that program's newer version, which is still able to save as R12's dxf.

But when I came to plug-in my brand new tablet, an inexpesive Bamboo-One, and try that "ancient unknown" AutoCad's command: _sketch, I found a hard to control, imprecise and awfully shaky interface. I'm not able to draw like that, even when I stick a little template in the tablet as a guide to follow the outer lines with the pen, the results are something that make me wanna cry in despair.

So my questions are:

Am I using the wrong command line? Does anybody know a better way of "freehand" drawing in AutoCad?

Am I using the wrong pen tablet? I must confess it was the cheapest at the store, but I thought it was good enough to begin with.

Does anybody know a Cad program, with a good pen tablet interface, and .dxf export ability??

And that's all, hope is not too boring. Thanks a lot for your time and patience.

[jalessi]

Join the Autodesk forum, lots of talented users may help you.

http://discussion.autodesk.com/forum...mID=17&start=0

[wildwestpat]

Hi Gollo

Sorry to hear of your problems The advice to persist and to use the AutoCAD forum is good. I have used pen tablets for a number of years and there is a deffinite technique to using them unless you have the luxury of one of the very expensive touch tablet displays used by graphic artists and not normal in the technical drawing field. Suggest you draw at the highest magnification (View / zoom) possible. This will help provided your hand is steady. I find using a piece of good quality glossy paper over the plastic face of the pad helps a lot in getting smooth pen movements.

For really good curves most drawing programmes have a work arround using arcs and segments and AutoCAD is particularly rich. There are Biezer drawing methods used for getting the fluidity of free hand with no jerkyness. However as far as I am aware these are the province of graphics packages such as CorelDraw not AutoCAD. (Biezer uses paddles which indicate magnitude and angle of a line from each node. The paddels are pulled about to adjust the curve to get exact fit.)

I am afraid it will take a little practice to get comfortable with drawing using the pen whilst looking at the screen not the pad! Keep at it and it will happen.

Have fun and stay safe with CNC

Pat

[ger21]

Are you setting the increment to a small amount when you start drawing?

Windows won't let me install my tablet to check, but I don't recall AutoCAD having a good solution for freehand tablet drawing.

[Gollo]

Thanks a lot everybody for the tips and advices. You've been so fast! I'm gonna try them all and take my time with tablet drawing while adjusting the tuning and setup options.

Wildwestpat talks 'bout a "biezer drawing" which I don't know what it is, could you please explain to me?

Thanks again you all.

[wildwestpat]

Hi Gollo

The Bezier method of drawing is best explained by the following animation.

http://www.artafterscience.com/docs/bezier_tool.htm

and as a general drawing technique for straight lines and curves in a bit better detail at

http://www.creativepro.com/article/d...-drawing-tools

As far as I am aware and I am not an Autocad user there is a plug in that will give Bezier capability to create beautiful free fowing curves. However there are cheap options including 'DoubleCAD XT', a free AutoCAD LT Work-Alike. More info at the following

http://www10.aeccafe.com/nbc/article...ticleid=650966

Once you have the curves you want for instrument making save them in a format that AutoCad can under stand and reopen them in AutoCad - arrange with any other parts and present them to what ever you are using to convert then to code for driving your high speed wood working router.

I have done a quick search on Google for 'AutoCad Bezier tools' and it looks as if AutoCad is lacking support. If you want beautiful free flowing curves it looks as if you need to think about replacing AutoCad unless there is a workable plug in to give Bezier functionality to AutoCad. Also look at Rhino which I struggle with but is capable of very good curve generation - be warned these programmes are expensive so the free IMSI DoubleCAD XT might be of help. Check that it is really free not a cripled version of an expensive software package!



Hope this helps.


Pat

[gavztheouch]

Have you used Adobe illustrator or photoshop?

Using a scan of a paper drawn sketch, you can pick out the outline and details using the "pen" tool. You can tweek and manipulate your lines until you are happy with them.

Then export it as a .dxf