Re: Mathematica input from graphics tablets?
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg19088] Re: Mathematica input from graphics tablets?
- From: Murray Eisenberg <murray at math.umass.edu>
- Date: Thu, 5 Aug 1999 01:35:08 -0400
- Organization: Mathematics & Statistics, Univ. of Mass./Amherst
- References: <7nlqah$bfq@smc.vnet.net> <7o3dp3$128$1@dragonfly.wolfram.com>
- Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com
I have spoken with a number of Mathematica users -- myself included -- who would love _some_ sort of interactive graphical input. For example, being able to click two points and have Mathematica return the graphics Line object joining the two as result (or as part of the entire graphics object created by additional clicks, etc.) and, as a side effect, displaying the line segment as well. One could imagine (dream of) additional capabilities, e.g., getting a circular arc by specifying endpoints and center; a Bezier curve from control points, etc. A GENERAL input mechanism would seem to be the way to go here. That is, one way to input the points would be directly by clicking into a notebook cell; another, obviously requiring an additional interface, would allow graphics tablet input. I hesitate to suggest that Mathematica should itself consist of everything _including_ the proverbial "kitchen sink" (sorry for the American English idiom here). But this is one thing that seems to obvious to want to include. Right now, having to translate from a "real" graphics program that allows interactive graphical input seems an unwelcome complication; so does laying out the configuration of lines or curves on graph paper, reading off the coordinates, and then manually entering the corresponding Mathematica graphics object. Jens-Peer Kuska wrote: > > Hi, > > Mathematica ins *not* very useful for interactive, visual graphics. > You may try to use a ordinary graphics program like CorelDraw and save > a wmf-file. You should be able to import the wmf-file with Mathematica > 4.0 > Import[] command. > > Hope that helps > Jens > > calvitti at gamow.ces.cwru.edu wrote: > > > > is there a product that enables Mathematica to receive input directly from a > > graphics tablet like wacom.com's? intstead of haveing to keep > > importing the graphics from an external drawing? - maybe a set of > > drivers that'd let you caputer line drawings as a set Mathematica primitives > > (perhaps splines or some suitable object model of the drawing) for > > displaying diagrams etc? > > > > as flexibly as users can generate Mathematica graphics, most times it's not > > worth the effort (e.g. when the notebooks are not meant for > > publication) > > > > +------------------------------------------+ > > alan calvitti > > systems and control engineering > > case western reserve university > > > > calvitti at alpha.ces.cwru.edu > > icq# 16264545 > > +------------------------------------------+ -- Murray Eisenberg murray at math.umass.edu Mathematics & Statistics Dept. phone 413 549-1020 (H) Univ. of Massachusetts 413 545-2859 (W) Amherst, MA 01003-4515