Wacom’s new Inkling Digital Pen is bridging the gap between sketching by hand and drawing on the computer. The technology allows you to sketch anywhere on paper with a pressure sensitive pens, that can pick up 1024 levels of sensitivity and an electronic receiver that clips onto the drawing medium. The information is stored onto the device, which has room for up to 50 projects and can then be transferred via a USB connection as digital media to a computer.
Wacom’s media software allows you to import the sketch as a vector file and a rasterized file in Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop, which provides ease of editing. The receiver also allows you to assign your pen strokes to multiple layers and is stored for digital editing. For now, the digital pens will only be available as ballpoint pens with interchangeable nibs. The new Wacom Inkling Pen combines “traditional, freehand sketching and digital development by capturing a digital likeness of a pen-on-paper sketch.” The pen and receiver imitate the process of drawing by hand, yet allowing you to think through the process of drawings as you would on a computer – with considerations for layers, future editing, pixels versus vectors.
