PCB Droid

[T3sl4co1l]

Ladies, please.

Let us not lose sight of the intent, due to the poor ambiguity of natural language.

Obviously, it was (and still is) possible to do real work on, say, vintage graphics hardware.

The present question is this: is it practical to do work on a given system, that is, is it more productive than a traditional workstation with keyboard and mouse?

When one says "it can't be done", it's not meant to be taken literally, but used as shorthand for this question.  That is, to be understood in the context of this thread.

To deny and change context on the fly, is disingenuous to everyone else, who are mostly reading this thread for ideas.  No one cares about a pedantic or trifling argument.

So, just because it's possible to do work on a 640x480 machine, doesn't mean you're rushing out to get a spare Pentium from the local Goodwill and put Protel or Autotrax or whatever on it.  Because that just wouldn't be practical, would it?

Back on topic: have Simon or Dave actually used a Wacom or similar tablet?  From what little I've used, they seem to be quite good.  Accuracy is achieved through feedback as usual; the pen moves the cursor when in proximity, and action is made when pressing.  Precision is much better, with natural proprioceptive motion and no ballistics.  There are multiple buttons on the tablet face (typically mapped to common actions: change pen/style, mode / select / whatever, etc.), and three (or more?) on the pen itself (e.g., pen down, thumb-forward and thumb-backward).

Now, using that kind of interface, with software that wasn't designed for it, may be more challenging than productive, even with the accuracy improvement.  There are a lot of shortcuts in, say, Altium, that you simply don't have enough face buttons for on a tablet.  You'll have to poke at menus constantly, or have a keyboard off to the side anyway (which will be just as slow to use, having to look over and reach to it with your free hand).  And then you might as well use a mouse instead, it's more compact.

Could an EDA tool be designed around a tablet, or changed to support one, and use it effectively?  I think the answer is, unquestionably, yes.  Altium is unlikely to do this (unless they have already, and I'm completely ignorant of it?), but a very keen user could perhaps develop KiCAD to do so!

Doing real [productive] work, entirely on a smart phone, I don't know about that.  The working area is just so small, relative to your fingers.  You have precision in a given gesture, but not many degrees of freedom as far as where to begin and end such gestures.  Consider the lowly on-screen keyboard: at a dozen keys across, it's already straining to provide accurate results, especially if you're going fast (for which a predictive dictionary is a must!).  Entering arbitrary text, accurately and quickly, is all but impossible.

Now, on a tablet as such, it's not so bad -- there is room to put your hands down and do touch typing.  There is a lot of area for your fingers to gesture over, and multi-finger (and multi-hand!) gestures are very feasible.  The lack of tactile feedback (hmm, for now, perhaps?) is a big barrier to touch typing, though.

Tim

[nctnico]

Altium might be working on browser-based CAD as we speak. The fast decline of Windows in the engineering sector forces the CAD software makers to support Mac and Linux. And they probably want to do this in a way they can support as many platforms as possible. For example: in the latest version of Orcad Capture the symbol editor is web-browser based.

[Bassman59]

If you have not actually tried a Wacom, you shouldn't dismiss it that glibly.

They are incredibly popular with their users, and their styles is a lot more flexible than a normal mouse pointer is (pressure sensitive, several buttons, double ended with different behaviours etc.)

I have not tried one myself for PCB layout, but I easily see how it could be a major productivity booster if that is your job.

The footnote is that the layout program needs to be configurable to take all the extra input signals, and I don't know if they are.

A few of my friends are graphic artists/designers and they all swear by their Wacom pen tablets. They literally cannot do most of their work without one. The mouse is simply not a proper substitute for how they draw. The tablets are pressure sensitive, so they can emulate bolder or thinner lines simply by how hard they touch the tablet.

Ages ago, I had a Wacom Pen Partner. (This is so long ago that it plugged into the PS/2 mouse port to steal power and the actual interface to the computer was the serial port.) I did use it for PCB and schematics, with Accel (prior to its purchase by PCAD) and also Electronics Workbench and Ultiboard. It was clumsy to use until you grokked how the applications worked. Remember that with these programs, say to draw a trace, you click the mouse where you want to start the trace, then move the mouse to the endpoint of the trace or a spot where it should make an angle and click again. With the pen, the natural inclination is to put the pen on the "paper" and drag, that is, you don't lift the pen from the tablet until you have moved to the spot that's the end of your line.

The Wacom would interpret touching the pen to the tablet as a left-mouse-button click, and it interpreted keeping the pen on the tablet as a drag. Lifting the pen was the unclick action. (The pen also had a button you could squeeze near where you held it, that was the right mouse button.) So to draw a trace for layout, you could "click" on the starting point by tapping the pen on the tablet, then you moved the pen to the endpoint and tap to click again. The mouse cursor would follow the location of the pen nib even when lifted from the tablet surface. With a bit of practice, this became natural and quick to do. Just flick your wrist, tap on the Add Trace toolbar icon, and go.

Oh, yeah, the Wacom software let you calibrate the touch tablet, and the darn thing was really accurate.

There were some annoyances, mostly related to how keyboards are designed. For example, I'm right-handed, so I hold the pen in my right hand. If your PCB program uses Page-Up and Page-Down as zoom in and out, well, those keys are on the right-hand side of the keyboard, so reaching them with your left hand to zoom is kinda awkward. Of course, one could simple redefine the hotkeys for various actions, say F1 and F2 for zoom in and out, or whatever. Or you could get a standalone numeric keyboard and put that to the left of the main keyboard, and work that with your left hand.

Everyone who's poo-pooing the idea of using a tablet for PCB CAD might just want to see what Wacom offers. In addition to the Intuos tablet (the newest version of my old Pen Partner, and it costs $70), they sell the Cintiq pen displays with 4k resolution, in sizes up to 32" (yikes!), so you can have the "power" of a desktop PC with fast graphics cards and the ability to write and draw on it. They sell a ballsy Windows-based pen computer called the Mobile Studio, which I suppose competes with the Microsoft Surface and has a huge display.

I remember a Prime CAD system at my first job after college (late 80s). It had a display, a keyboard, a tethered stylus, and a large tablet with marked areas for operations.

I have the 12.9" iPad Pro with the Apple Pencil and the keyboard case. The display has higher resolution than a lot of laptops. It can render and do things with AutoDesk Fusion 360 and it seems to be powerful enough (at least for simple things like rendered PCBs and enclosures). My wife has the slightly smaller version, also with the Pencil and the keyboard case. Many times she's used it instead of the laptop for Real Work. The keyboard is the secret, really, because you can actually type. So writing and updating documents is easy. You don't have to do SMS in your emails. I can read and post on this forum using the standard desktop site and not the mobile. Basically, when using my iPad Pro, I've sometimes thought that there's no particular reason why it couldn't be used with Kicad.

(Doing any kind of CAD work on a smartphone is, of course, completely silly.)

[Simon]

I'm sure they did think of it and while pressing an icon in a program may look inspiring no one has yet explained how you deal with the various operations using just a finger on a screen. The pens are mouse replacements so don't really count I am afraid.

Now you are just moving goal posts. The original claim is that you can't use a touchscreen for CAD at all; this clearly isn't true.

Listen, trouble maker that has to be always right! the claim in the OP was that this software will allow me to do a PCB design at a bus stop on my phone. I don't care what YOU have decided it is, if you don't like it get out!

IMHO you seem to be the one who is stuck in his own believes. Why even bother posting if you don't want to learn any new insights anyway? Are you going to lock this thread too because you don't like the answers?

Let me give you a small history lesson. Back in the old days we used 14" (effectively 11") monitors with a resolution of 640x480 to design boards. Heck; I've even used a Toshiba Libretto (which is the size of a VHS casette / A5 sized book) to design boards. So why would a (big) smart phone or a small tablet (both together with a stylus) be out of the question?

i repeat once again, the claim was that the app can be used to do PCB design on the go on a mobile phone and no one in support of this can explain how you replace full mouse funtionality  - or a tablet with stylus which I have considered mysefl as a MOUSE REPLACEMENT !!!!!

Yes I have used very old systems myself mthankyou and they had a mouse! I did PCB design at school on 386's with the same 640*480 screens using orcad for DOS, and still this had more control than todays touchscreen phones.

No I won't lock this nthread, I will just ban YOU!

[2N3055]

@Bassman59

Nobody argues that you cannot dig a pool with a spoon. Of course you can but it wouldn't be very efficient, would it ?

There is a reason why people doing CAD usually have two 24"+ monitors when doing their job.
I started doing PCB's log time ago on 14" CRT and it was no fun, I tell you.
Doing it on a tablet would be worse.

As I said, when doing CAD RIGHT you use BOTH HANDS, keyboard shortcuts, digitizing tablets (like Wacom) all at the SAME TIME.
When doing something, you also open multiple windows SIDE BY SIDE. When typing text, skilled typist can type in HUNDREDS of words per minute..Etc, etc.

As opposed to one finger on 10" (or 12") screen.

Yeah, it can be done. Is it smart, efficient? Or is it digging a pool with a spoon?

[Simon]

Everyone who's poo-pooing the idea of using a tablet for PCB CAD might just want to see what Wacom offers. In addition to the Intuos tablet (the newest version of my old Pen Partner, and it costs $70), they sell the Cintiq pen displays with 4k resolution, in sizes up to 32" (yikes!), so you can have the "power" of a desktop PC with fast graphics cards and the ability to write and draw on it. They sell a ballsy Windows-based pen computer called the Mobile Studio, which I suppose competes with the Microsoft Surface and has a huge display.

I remember a Prime CAD system at my first job after college (late 80s). It had a display, a keyboard, a tethered stylus, and a large tablet with marked areas for operations.


(Doing any kind of CAD work on a smartphone is, of course, completely silly.)

No one is poo pooing the idea of a tablet as in a touch pad that replaces the mouse. I have been considering it myself.

[nctnico]

One important thing to keep in mind is that a device which has a touch screen needs to run applications which are designed for use with a touch screen. Just adding a touch screen as a mouse replacement is likely not going to work well. OTOH a touch screen offers a lot more possibilities because you can touch multiple spots at once and make 'gestures'.

[Simon]

Well they are developing for PC and MAC as well so they will need to develop 2 distinct interfaces. My experience of touchscreens is that the amount of different interactions you can have on the same point is limited giving a margin for error. A long press for a right click seems to be the standard. Depending on how big the screen is a fat finger will be less accurate at identifying the point of interest than the single pixel acuracy of a mouse pointer. The other thing to consider is paralax error, at a certain point you will aim for a point on the screen and miss it slightly depending on the various angles of aproach of your finger, the screen to your eye angle I get this a lot when I am at a funny angle to the screen. This is not a problem on most interfaces where icons are being pressed but it can get tricky if you are trying to select a track or a via where the track cover the via.

Screen size is the other factor. While I have installed CS on my 12" touchscreen laptop I would never dream of actually using it on there for any length of time. If you need more buttons for functions so that you can touch them then you need more screen, I am sure that anyone designing an interface probably has this compromise to make of accessibility to functions versus amount of buttons/icons on the screen with the lesser used functions going in menu's and right click menus for specific function menu's.