Preamble

Recently I started digital sculpting, and I immediately realized that the mouse is not the best tool for this scope. As any tutorial will tell you, a drawing tablet will make you much faster and much more precise.

I do not have one, but I have a Microsoft Surface Pro and a Surface Pen. However, it is the base, not-so-powerful model: it has just a Core M3 and 4GB of RAM. It was enough to study at University, but, sadly, I cannot even think of running a 3D editor in it.

Initially, I tried Weylus, a program that allows you to control a machine (my Linux desktop, in my case) through a web browser from any device with a stylus. Being web-based, it works on any device, including iPads, and it even mirrors the screen.

However, it did not play well with the barrel button of my pen. And that button is critical for a lot of workflows.

Therefore, I decided to write my own software to do so: NetStylus.

The Win32 API for tablets

I discovered that Microsoft has liked pen input methods for years: they started the Tablet PC thing with Windows XP, before 2005!

They have several APIs and functionality, but we are interested in the one that sits at the beginning of the chain: the Real-Time Stylus interface. … [Leggi il resto]