Online mode

[roelj]

It seems like online-mode is possible including pressure data after all:
http://forum.wacom.eu/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=18686

Does anyone have AutoDesk Sketchbook Express and could confirm that the Inkling can be used in online-mode with pressure data?

[roelj]

My guess is that the data sent in online mode is the same as the data sent in offline mode. The only thing that needs to be done to get online mode working would be a kernel driver that can initialize the online mode and pass the data to the program (or act as a mouse driver). Could it be that this would be almost identical to one of the Wacom tablets?

[xuv]

Have tested the online mode on Windows and with Autodesk Scketchbook Express, and here is some review about it.

First, I must say that I'm really excited by this online mode. The inkling is a totally usable and cheap "tablet" replacement. It's maybe a little buggy here and there. But it's a great tool to draw. And it actually works on any surface. It would be the ideal tool for me as a "portable tablet" replacement.

I was surprised to see that it works just like a mouse. The position of the pen (if picked up by the receiver) is streamed constantly, even when no pressure is applied and when the pen tip is hanging 1cm above the paper. A click and drag event is sent when pressure is applied to the pen tip (aka when drawing on the paper). A short tap of the pen on the paper is equal to a click. A double tap on the paper is equal to a double click.

After installing the Autodesk Sketchbook Express, I tried all the possible tools and parameters I could find but never seemed to have anything resembling pressure sensitivity. So, AFAIK, there is no pressure data sent. I would guess that pressure is just used to trigger "click (and drag)" or "no click".

[xuv]

Confirmation by Wacom that the online mode doesn't have pressure: http://forum.wacom.eu/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=17718#p64111

[xuv]

As stated here.

As there is no special driver installed, I think this works with mouse data and does not include pressure information.

There is no windows driver? So it behaves like a usb mouse?
How do you set a usb device to behave like a mouse in linux? Would it be that easy?

[roelj]

Hmm.. I'll try using libusb to make it behave like a mouse.

[roelj]

What I've found out so far:

• The inkling device implements two interfaces, one is a "Mass Storage" interface, and the other is a "Human Input Device "HID" interface". What this means is that we can use the storage and HID simultaneously.
• The protocol is not standard, so attaching a standard mouse driver probably won't work.

I hope we can add Inkling support to the already-existing Wacom device driver. I'll look into it and try to get that driver working with the Inkling. If that works, we could have it working like a regular wacom tablet.

[marcoblancas]

Hello Roel... did you was able to use the Inkling with the online mode on Linux. I'm exited to be able to use it for my maths lectures screencasts recorded with xournal and kazam in linux.

[roelj]

Hello marcoblancas. Thanks for showing your interest.

I haven't been able to get it working. Mainly due to my lack of knowledge about the USB subsystem.

[marcoblancas]

I'm writing in the Wacom Linux Project some message related to this.

http://sourceforge.net/p/linuxwacom/mailman/linuxwacom-discuss/?viewmonth=201410&viewday=28

[roelj]

@marcoblancas That's a great move.
To my understanding, when plugging in the Inkling, two modes are exposed: Mass Storage and HID.
See the output of lsusb -vv on the Wacom Inkling device:
http://pastebin.com/bnPqxpqD

Do you want me to enter the discussion as well. Or could you pass along this information?

[roelj]

Adding "usbhid.quirks=0x056a:0x0221:0x40000000" to the kernel line looks promising.
dmesg shows it sees the HID device interface.

I'll have a look at the existing Wacom drivers and see if I can the Inkling to work with it. This might take a couple of weeks before I can give a status update though.. Any help is appreciated.

[marcoblancas]

Today I sent a new message to the thread in the Wacom for Linux Project...

http://sourceforge.net/p/linuxwacom/mailman/linuxwacom-discuss/thread/CANRwn3Q_MmmqSpDrWy-Dav_O4XfBypeakysb_kdnODo7mRo7mQ%40mail.gmail.com/

with some test they required. You can enter in the discussion if you want. I'm not a very advanced Linux user and I can just a little... testing and things like this...

[roelj]

Not much news in the last couple of days. Unfortunately I'm in the process of bringing some internal changes to InklingReader so it can handle more complex converting later.

Have you got the Inkling device to work as a USB mouse device? I tried with the hid-recorder as well but I had no success. I looked at the wacom-input driver but I couldn't really make up where I could add the device descriptors to get the Inkling to be recognized (and that would probably not even work straight away).

So once again I have to postpone this feature request.

As far as your usage. You may find the replay functionality useful along with automatic coloring of layers.. This would give you at least some control over what is shown at a specific time when doing math videos or real classroom teaching.

[roelj]

I remember the SketchManager sends a sequence of USB packets to the Inkling device before it starts sending the coordinates to the computer. I will try to "replay" these packets and see if it's just as easy as sending those packets to enable it to behave like a mouse. From there the generic mouse driver could pick it up.