Wacom’s Inkling is the latest Wacom pen technology, and allows you to draw and sketch on any paper surface while recording your pen strokes. The recordings can be transferred to your computer where they are converted into vector drawings. The recording device can detect pressure sensitive information and allows you to incorporate layers into your drawing, that can be interpreted by the software you load your work into.
Inkling is compatible with Mac and PC and is meant to be used in conjunction with Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, as well as Autodesk Sketchbook and Sketchbook Designer.
Of course, I’m interested in trying it our with my regular sketchbook, in the context of sketching and drawing, and wonder how easy it is to clean up the noise of excess pen strokes. Wouldn’t there be a large number on vector objects to manage for large drawings? Maybe this is truly meant for sketching only. Too bad there’s only one type of ink open available.
We’ve seen similar pen tools like this before, but without the integration of audio recording capability I don’t think Inkling can be considered a direct competitor to the Live Scribe Pens. I mention Live Scribe specifically as it seems to fill a particular niche for the audiences we work with most often (learners and teachers). With those audiences in mind, I wonder if Inkling would be one potential solution for transferring math notation.