Drawing Tablets?

[Maximusde34]

Has anyone used drawing tablets? I absolutely HATE inkscape and just want a simple program to quickly draw things up and send to the machine without having to waste time with a million little stupid details and crap to deal with. Draw-send-cut. That's it.

[acourtjester]

use the search function in the upper right there have been posts about the tablets.

[adbuch]

Jason - GTCO Calcomp make some nice drawing boards (tablets) ranging in size from 12" x 18" to around 44" x 60". When used in conjunction with a program called Logic Trace these are great for digitizing freehand drawing, tracing, point to point, lines and arcs, circles, and smooth curve fits through points, and so on. You simply draw what you want and the Logic Trace software program creates a DXF file from your drawing. Depending on your proficiency with the drawing portion, some editing/clean-up of the DXF file may be required before converting to cut paths for your cnc plasma table.

I own and use 3 different sizes of this tablet: 12x18, 36x48, and 44x60. I believe the current price for the 44x60 including the Logic Trace software program is around $3600. The last time I checked the purchase price for the Logic Trace software alone was around $2000.

So the process would be more like: draw - edit - create cut paths - cut. I live in Tucson. You are welcome to phone me to discuss.

David

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[adbuch]

Jason - when using the GTCO Calcomp drawing boards you may find it easier to hand draw your artwork on paper first. Then tape the paper to the drawing board and do your hand tracing. This will also make it easier to keep track of which lines have been traced and where you start or stop with each path. This can make subsequent editing easier and faster. Here is an example showing Stan Kern using this system to trace a large drawing.

David


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JU-XURjaaPI

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