The modo view nav widgets look nice but they are super tiny…
If blender is to have them then I hope they will work like a desktop dock
(such as the apple OSX one or the Rocket Dock)
where in as you move the cursor over them they will become larger,
also note that the icon next to the one your over will also become a little larger
(about half the size though, might be nice as a setting) this way they will be easier to access.
Here are the ones from MOI… they’re about the perfect size IMHO really easy to hit without having to concentrate too much… they are semi transparent so they’re not in your face but become opaque on mouse over… great function!
apologies for size of screenshot, but it is “actual size”
It still seems the fundamental issue is: what is the tablet good for?
As the recent blendernation video sang: “one hand on the keyboard, one hand on the mouse!”
Unfortunately, there is no established default tablet. Some have sliders controls, some have normal buttons, some have none. Some have one or more pen-buttons, some have none. Some have powerful config software and some have almost nothing. Planning for all the variations means more complexity, or just aiming for lowest common denominator. (no buttons at all)
Anyways, to avoid turning this into an epic re-design of blender with a touchscreen-only interface, it seems the most useful thing for a tablet is detailed manual artistic work.
Since the pen-hand has to replace all mouse functions (ideally), I would like some kind of very close-by toolbar with big buttons and an interaction that makes it as easy as possible to use the pen alone to move the view around.
Detailed example: In the midst of sculpting, I need to turn the view-port.
I’ve got my Intuos pen-button mapped to middle-mouse button. One squeeze and my pen motions turn into view-port motions. It’s as fast as it can get with one mitt.
Whatever you do Mike, don’t mess with that!
Aiming with the pen is not as fast and easy as a mouse, so a custom tool-bar docked right in the view-port, with big buttons, would be fastest. Ideally I could add other hot tools as well in the same place. I played with Maya 10 years ago and it had customizable put-anywhere drag-n-drop tool-bars and I’m hoping the 2.5 refactor will allow somebody else to add that ability, finally. Despite all the GUI improvements, it still reflects a certain Blender-ish attitude that limits customization by the user.
Shadowphile… your proposal for viewnav seems very modal and clunky to me…
the “drag” in hotspot paradigm is more instant and less modal… though I’ll admit it’s flawed in modo and lightwave because it’s too near the screen edge… I do get how your proposal gets around that…
on another note:
the view cube (as a virtual trackball in the corner of the screen) is actually a pretty clever idea and could give quick access to orthographic views too… though the outer turntable is overly large
detractors grumble about screen size for this widget or call it ugly…and also complain that it doesn’t switch to ortho views when you click “front”, “side” etc… but it is actually really nice with a tablet!
finally, I never use a mouse… and find a tablet more accurate in almost every single way… exception is extreme screen edges…
A setup where you could use only the tablet(and the monitor of course) to work it’s a dream.
Efficiency it’s not the only thing IMO to take into account,I think some more thinking to the comfort could be great(for example when sculpting,it should be a pleasant feeling,not a physical stress)
EDIT:
For example,it could be cool trying to use the tilt for the rotation
I post here,but I don’t know if this is related to this project or to the brush sculpting project.
Will be possible to use the eraser when sculpting not as a negative strength for a brush but as a different tool(brush)?
My dream is to use the pen to draw,clay,flatten and so on and the eraser as a smooth brush.
In Blender currently if I use the pen tip or the eraser with a brush I have only inverted strength,but it’s not possible to lock a brush(for example the smooth brush)to the eraser.
For me it’s really natural in this way and could avoid the flattening of the nib(if someone of you have intuos 4 probably knows that the nib is flattening very quickly)
Maybe for tablets it would be good to have a hotkey (mapable to any tablet button) to freeze the cursor.
Since in Blender it’s very important the position of the cursor to give focus, or specify an exact point where an action should be performed, you have to lift your pen before tapping on any “hot-cell” of the tablet which will perform an action.
If the cursor could be frozen by a key/button, then I think it would be quicker and more precise to do actions with the tablet’s hot-cells. It would need less precision, you just hold down the button to freeze the cursor and don’t need to care if you lift the pen enough which could also move the cursor a bit and thus be less precise. And then release the key/button and continue.
eclectiel, what type of tablet do you have?
I never had problem hitting literally anything with my tablet, it’s generally much faster and more precise than anything mouse-like.edit: understood your point after writing this, sorry. too often it happens to me when I type text, I put my pen on table and realize the cursor is off focus… 
Why to talk actually about secondary tablet buttons? as said, they’re different on each tablet. I guess it should still be supposed the user keeps one hand on the keyboard, since in a general 3d software like blender, the shortcuts are simply too many. On wacoms you can basically have something which behaves closely to 3-button mouse without the scrollwheel directly on the pen, The buttons on side are usually by default mapped to ctrl alt shift which seems very logical to me, in most sculpting applications this is sufficient to acces smooth, mask brushes and to invert the action. But I think this really shouldn’t be cared for, since the tablets are configurable on system level. Instead of accomodating to every type of tablet, much easier would be to have a wiki ‘how to set up your type of tablet for use with blender’ section I think.
I think what should/could be resolved before the buttons is proper sensitivity of the sliders/interactive tools, transforms e.t.c.
hmm, not sure about this…
z-brush, maya, silo(excepting view nav) (and MOI, but that’s designed for tablet) all work great one handed with just a tablet.
And that’s what it’ll take for blender to be nice with a space navigator for general 3d work too…
though the 2d suggestions for an ndof device are interesting!
as for extra tablet buttons/setup etc… it’d be bad to design just for intuos 4 for example, but providing common tools that could be hooked in to extended tablet commands sliders and buttons would be good too…
(eg easily customised radial/marking menus… gestures, touch events (like teh zoom and rotate with two finger touch gestures … (already on mac, but be nice for other OS’s!)
Drag and drop too: it can give agreat workflow for all sorts of things without needing menu commands or key shortcuts!
I think I didn’t put clearly that the main purpose of freezing the cursor would be “not to need to care about lifting the pen”.
EDIT: when tapping on-tablet “hot cells” with the pen.
Heh, I wasn’t thinking of distance to the hotspot, but you right. I was thinking that actually spoodling (love that word: ‘spin’ + ‘doodle’) the pen within a little hot-spot wouldn’t allow much precision, but yeah, certainly less modal and quick. (and I generally find modal more clunky as well). And the way I described it might seem clunky because I used prose more suitable for programmers. :o
I’ve tried using the pen as a mouse, but I guess it takes practice. The pen has to float, in care of my hand, whereas the mouse (and my palm) has a constant resting surface. I cramp quickly using the pen as a mouse. (ie moving it around the tablet surface without actually touching it to move the cursor) Plus, I have a high-rez dual-monitor setup, which might also make a difference.
I like the idea of the navcube. Wish I could program some quick mock ups just to try out different ideas.
I chose to focus on the Intuos4 because it’s the most current and capable. The medium and large varieties have these spiffy OLED displays beside each of 8 buttons, plus a multifunction wheel doo-dad. I thought “what could we do with these things?” and came up with a scheme to put commonly-used tools at your fingertips, reducing the need to reach for the full keyboard.
You have 8 tools right on the tablet, and (very important!) you can see what they do at a glance. Which tools are available depends on what you’re doing (model, sculpt, whatever), and however you’ve customized it.
For example, in sculpt mode the buttons could simply be your brushes. Press a button to select that brush. Or press and hold to “load” a different brush onto this button. There was plenty of talk on the sculpting soc thread about having dozens of brushes, but that we typically juggle just a few at a time. That’s good, because we only have a few buttons!
Maybe dedicate some buttons to navigate in the 3D view, no matter what else you’re doing. Or just a single button for this, which shows a navigation widget like several of you suggest. These would be momentary, active only while held down. Is that manageably modal enough for everyone’s tastes?
Anyway, those are just a few examples. I don’t know what’s best for different situations. I’m just trying to get the foundations ready. Sure, it’s not for everyone, but it’s another way for blender to stand out. If there’s another app that handles the tablet in such a way, it’s news to me. As far as I know, all apps stick to the same set of tools / commands / key combos set in the control panel. If you know of any exceptions, feel free to mock my ignorance! 
Using the OLED displays is like using pen tilt, in a way. It would make some people’s experience better, and not make anyone’s worse. This didn’t start as a radical tablet-only redesign, and it won’t end up that way.
On a somewhat related note… came across this gem tonight while mining MSDN for some needed info: “The mouse is an important, but optional, user-input device for applications.” 
Yes, it would. I’ve got dibs on the Bondi blue Graphire 1!
I think what should/could be resolved before the buttons is proper sensitivity of the sliders/interactive tools, transforms e.t.c.
Quite right. I’ll work on the most helpful stuff first, and save my button fun for the end of summer. Should the pen be treated differently than the mouse for these actions?
Good idea. There’s an Intuos2 here in the lab that works like this, with a row of commands up top. Don’t know about other tablets, but this one has no physical buttons for this function. Keyboard, then?
If abused, the frozen cursor could be used to make zig-zag strokes. On purpose, this time!
http://blenderartists.org/forum/showpost.php?p=1634944&postcount=204
One more before I head home…
Your settings in the control panel override anything in the app. If you have it set to MMB, blender gets a MMB, not a pen event. Cool, huh?
These are all cool ideas, i just wanted to reiterate my reason for wanting camera nav icons. Its not neccessarily to replace the need for a keyboard, its to keep you from having to hold down keys for a common operation. Many keys in blender merely require key presses, which is great, but camera nav happens more than anything so you are constantly holding keys down, which is bad for RSI sufferers.
Hey guys, if you haven’t watched this, view Sumit’s use of a tablet making commercial cg with Blender. I think he has a cintiq on a workstation but it might be worth getting his input for tablet support with Blender. He’s a very nice guy and if you can get hold of him, he’d likely give good input.
http://www.lanternhouse.org/ananta/watch/making_of/
I’ll try emailing him and see if I can get him to look at this thread.
Thanks for the link, walshlg. Sumit can really fly in Blender, and does fantastic work in that video! It made me want a Cintiq… and to be a great artist… His feedback is more than welcome.
I noticed he uses the onscreen manipulators. I always turn these off, but they seem to be a great match for the tablet. This is the kind of interaction fahr wants, but for view (not object) manipulation. Always available, no need for modifier keys, and optional. Right? Would the mini-axis be a good spot for something like this?
View navigation fits well with the SpaceNavigator integration, so I’ll most likely tackle the nav icon request along with that.
Yes, I believe a hotkey would do. Anyway it could be maped to a tablet button.
I was thinking if instead of “cursor freezing” it would be better a “focus-freeze”. Made a mockup:
http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/4462/cursorfocusfreeze.png
The cusor at the right would be a “phantom” cursor keeping the focus position (when pressing a hotkey/button), while the cursor at the left is the “real” cursor which would be able to interact with the interface.
I think this would allow the “quick hot-cell tapping”, and for instance if the “real-time brush preview on surface” is implemented, it would be possible to freeze the position of the brush in the desired place of the surface, and go to the toolbar to tweak the brush settings and see them in real-time affecting the surface in the exact place we want.
For tasks where the position of the mouse is important this would allow to have control of the focus while going to the toolbar to click operators or change settings.
I’m not sure yet if it would work well in all situations.
I think this might work well with mouse, but with the tablet it actually wouldn’t work very well because it wouldn’t be able to return to the position (as tablet mouse positions are absolute, not continuous)
Hadn’t found this thread yet, but there’s a lot of valuable info here. What I’m thinking about myself tho, is it possible to read the serial port from python? I’m an industrial design student and focus on tangible devices, so would love to be able to make my own input devices work through python (I generally use a simple bluetooth serial connection to communicate with the pc)
Edit: looking at http://en.myinventions.pl/index.php?page=ArduinoToBlender this might already be possible
