I'm having problems using my pen display graphics tablet with MoI and am hoping to hear other peoples' experiences so that I can figure out if there's a solution. For example, if I use a normal mouse to zoom and then to drag with the middle mouse button, dragging works perfectly:



But, if I use the tablet pen, doing a middle-mouse-button or right-mouse-button drag doesn't work until after I've left-clicked in the viewport:



If you have a Huion pen display, Wacom Cintiq, or other graphics tablet would you try this and see what yours does?

Do you have a graphics tablet and operating system setup that works flawlessly with MoI and vector graphics apps?

I'm using a Huion Kamvas Pro 22 with macOS Monterey, but am open to switching tablets and/or operating systems.

Hi Peer,

I use a Wacom Cintiq flawlessly with MoI, I use it everyday with no problems.
I also teach MoI to students at a local school and encourage that the mouse is not used but a small Wacom A5 tablet is used instead.
I encourage all to use a tablet only and no mouse to get the best experience from MoI, as far as I am concerned.
The little part greyed out widgets at the bottom of the viewer window work excellently at moving around the model, I find that using the mouse middle wheel simply confuses students and employees alike!

I hope that this viewpoint is helpful to you.

Hi James,

I'm glad to hear that a Cintiq is working well for you. I guess I'll borrow one and try it out.

By the way, I took a look at your website. You do beautiful work!

- Peer

Hello,
I don't know if this is of any help, but here is some data :

- I have been using MOI 4.0 for perhaps hundreds of hours over the last 2 years or so, on a windows workstation (first 7pro, then 10pro) using either a regular mouse, or a regular tablet (Intuos4 Medium), or a Cintiq (21UX black). I've never had any unexpected input issues on this setup.

- However, I also use a Macbook Air when I need to use MOI on the move, with a regular Logitech mouse. With this setup everything seems to be working fine at first and then some exception happens breaking the scroll zoom behavior of the mouse in MOI, forcing me to use a combination of mouse and trackpad for navigation. Since this isn't my main workstation I have not attempted to fully repro or document the issue, but something odd is definitely going on. Now this is of course different from your described issue, but perhaps this is related ?

I'd be more than happy to document the issue further if that's helpful.

Hi Pior,

re: this part:
> However, I also use a Macbook Air when I need to use MOI on the move, with a regular Logitech
> mouse. With this setup everything seems to be working fine at first and then some exception
> happens breaking the scroll zoom behavior of the mouse in MOI, forcing me to use a combination
> of mouse and trackpad for navigation.

That could have to do with the attempt in v4 to try to detect when the Apple Magic Mouse is being used. The detection mechanism can stop working at some point. It was something like the OS stops sending a "touch begin" event before sending a gesture event at some point.

In v5 I've given up on that, so it's possible this issue has already been dealt with in the v5 beta.

- Michael

Hello !
Interesting - so I guess the behavior I've been experiencing isn't related at all to the topic of this thread then ? (hard to tell for sure I suppose).

Anyways - if that can be of any help I'd be more than happy to dive deeper into this glitch repro it. This issue has never been a huge blocker for me, but it might become a bit more annoying as I might need to use this Macbook install a bit more in the future (to edit designs on the fly near a laser CNC, away from my main workstation). I could aslo perhaps try to compare V4 and V5beta on this macbook if that is of any interest.

Hi Pior,

Thanks for telling me about the OS and hardware details of your working setup. It sounds like I should try using my tablet with a Windows machine. I also rented a Cintiq to see if it's an issue with the Huion specifically.

It sounds like the problem you've seen with a Macbook Air and Logitech mouse is only for scroll zooming and that you haven't had a problem with pan or rotation like the upper GIF here:

http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=10818.11

Is that right?

- Peer

Hello Peer -
You're welcome.
And I would say that indeed, the issues I've had when using MOI on the mac were only related to scroll zoom with a mouse. As far as I can recall I've had no issues related to camera rotation or panning, but I'll double check.
All that said I could very well run some tests with a tablet too, to see if I am finding anything. I only have wacom tablets at my disposal though, no Huion.

Hi Pior,

re:
> Interesting - so I guess the behavior I've been experiencing isn't related at all to the topic of this thread then ? <...>

I suspect that it isn't related.


> Anyways - if that can be of any help I'd be more than happy to dive deeper into this glitch repro it.

If you do happen to start using your Macbook some more just please let me know if you ever run across it again with v5.

Thanks, - Michael

I was just remembering that there was a kind of similar sounding bug with Wacom back quite a while ago:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=8731.101

There is a standalone test case app attached there that reproduced the bug outside of MoI, which I sent to Wacom and they fixed it in their updated drivers.

I wonder if there's a bug in some example tablet driver code from Apple.

- Michael

Hi Michael,

Thanks for the link and for writing a test program in the first place! I used yours along with this one:

http://www.markdouma.com/developer/MouseMovedvsTrackingAreas.zip

Turns out there is a bug in the tablet driver, but doesn't seem related to the symptoms I'm seeing:

• 2 otherMouseUp events each time that pen button assigned to middle mouse button is released

The major difference between a normal mouse and this tablet is that a normal mouse doesn't generate Moved or Dragged
events when it's stationary. The tablet, on the other hand, spits them out at 130-200 Hz even when the pen is as still
as I can hold it. I'm thinking that the constant stream of motion events is interfering with the "wait and see mode"

https://moi3d.com/forum/lmessages.php?webtag=MOI&msg=10550.7

Which might be supported by these results in MoI:

• Can't pan or orbit with MMB or RMB drag after doing LMB drag on Zoom button in v5 unless I first left click in
  viewport
  

• Alt+Shift+LMB works for panning after dragging on zoom button
  
• Alt+Ctrl+LMB works for zooming after dragging on zoom button
  
• Alt+LMB works for orbiting after dragging on zoom button
  

I'm going to test this idea out with a Cintiq this week. Maybe it will turn out that the Cintiq will also generate
motion events at >100 Hz with the pen stationary, but MoI will work just fine. Or maybe the Cintiq won't generate motion
events at a high rate, but MoI will still have problems. Either would point at this idea being wrong.

But, I'm still puzzled by these problems in MoI:

• MMB drag pan exits if nib touches glass
• RMB drag orbit exits if nib touches glass
• Alt+MMB drag pan exits if nib touches glass
• Alt+RMB drag zoom exits if nib touches glass

They're weird because I don't see any events being generated when the nib touches the glass using your WacomTest. If I
comment out only otherMouseDragged (to prevent that stream of events from hiding everything else) and then move the pen
around on the test window with MMB held, I don't see any events if I press the nib against the glass. Also, if I comment
out everything except for otherMouseDragged it's not like I see the stream of otherMouseDragged events stop when I press
the nib to the glass. So, at most, pressing the nib to the glass is very briefly interrupting the stream of
otherMouseDragged events.

Strangely, doing the same test in Mark Douma's mouseMoved area, I see exactly 2 mouseMoved events every time I press nib
to glass. Any ideas?

Here are more results from the test programs that all match behavior of a normal mouse except the high rate of motion
events while stationary:

• 1 mouseEntered when pen enters tracking area
• 1 mouseExited when pen leaves tracking area
• 175 mouseDragged per second when nib pressed against glass and held still
  
• 0 otherMouseDragged or rightMouseDragged when nib pressed against and moved
  
• 160 otherMouseDragged per second when nib pressed against glass with MMB down
  
• 0 mouseDragged or rightMouseDragged when nib pressed against glass and moved with MMB held down
  
• 130 rightMouseDragged per second when nib pressed against glass with RMB down
  
• 0 mouseDragged or otherMouseDragged when nib pressed against glass and moved with RMB held down
  

- Peer

Hi Peer,

> Strangely, doing the same test in Mark Douma's mouseMoved area, I see exactly 2 mouseMoved events
> every time I press nib to glass. Any ideas?

Sorry no ideas here...

- Michael

James, Pior, and Michael:

Thanks for encouraging me to try a Cintiq. I've got a loaner and it works flawlessly with MoI. I sent a bug report to Huion so that hopefully they'll fix their driver.

- Peer

Very nice :)

If anything I would also suggest to try a regular Wacom tablet (without a display) - because since CAD software is mostly based on a point and click input paradigm, the hand/eye disconnect usually caused by regular drawing tablets is barely noticeable. Unless you need actual freehand sketching of course.

Also, I need to ask : where did you manage to rent a Cintiq ? Through a rental company for photography gear perhaps ?

Hi Pior,

The reason I have a pen display is because I do freehand vector graphics stuff. But, I don't have any experience with the non-display type of tablets. Are there advantages aside from cost?

I got the Cintiq from lensrentals.com

- Peer

Personally nothing else comes close to a Cintiq, I use one in my office at work, one at home and a little A5 bluetooth Wacom tablet when I'm out and about. I find modelling a lot more fun and faster with what you are working on directly under the pen! Personal preference I guess

Hello -
It will highly depend on personal preferences ... but it absolutely cannot be decided without trying both.

I would also agree that for hand gestures/stroke control, the Cintiq is of course the most accurate ; but it's nowhere as simple as that.
For instance, my setup consists of a Cintiq (21UX) and a regular tablet (Intuos4 Medium) plugged at the same time, as well as a mouse of course - and depending on the task I constantly switch between all 3, even just for MOI. I've tried going Cintiq-only and tablet-only in the past, and neither suit me without the other to complement it. Here are some thoughts in no particular order :

- The most skilled illustrator I've worked with stuck to a regular tablet. I felt like it allowed him to do things a Cintiq can't, like exploiting the scale difference between input (tablet) and output (screen) for a dynamic look to his strokes. I noticed him redoing his lines a bit more than one would on paper or Cintiq, but the results were still extremely fast and great looking.

- But in opposition to that, I absolutely can't freehand with a regular tablet myself - I just find it too unpleasant, which goes against my principle of always enjoying the process itself. Whereas some people are fine with "fighting the process" all the way through.

- The biggest downside of the Cintiq is that it forces one to work bigger (more zoomed in) than the equivalent strokes on paper, and with once face quite close to the screen, and that's detrimental especially when doing illustration work. But of course this doesn't matter if the nature of the work doesn't require to have a broad view of the overall composition.

Anyways - as said, my advice would 100% be to try both *at the same time*, without getting stuck with the idea of having pick one or the other (after all, if your budget allows for a tablet display ... then it also allows for the addition of a regular tablet).

(Thanks for the reference for gear rentals btw)

Hi Pior,

Thanks for sharing your insights! I hadn't thought about it before, but you're right: with a pen display I'm usually zoomed in really far. I'll give a regular tablet a try.

- Peer

Hi there, I use Moi3d with a 15.6 Xp pen graphics tablet with screen. It works really well. But I personally always have a micro mouse sitting next to my tablet on the right, and external mini keyboard on the left. Running into a 36 inch flat screen tv.
For me the mouse is the most accurate and precise and fastest way of using Moi. Many tasks I will use my tablet. But certain functions the mouse is way faster and efficient.
Also there is so many different ways to set up all your hot keys and even the way the pen works. I was testing out the functions as I read your message.

On my tablet when you are using the quick animated selections at the bottom of the screen. If you just stay in that area going between zoom, pan, rotate. It works very well. But jumping back up to the main screen I need to trigger the right click that I have set to the pens button settings. I can actually right click my pen and hover it over the screen and rotate. But so much better just grabbing your mouse.

These graphics tablets are so amazing to use. And Moi3D is such a wonderful program.

P.s. Always have to mention this. Try out that porcelain lighting. You can find all those amazing lighting options and some really top notch tutorials. At Michael A. Maynard K4ICY. Find it in the Moi wiki under resources. In the tutorials click on any of the images. There is massive amounts of info. in there.
Moi is pure inspiration. Have fun.

Another last thought. I also have many paint and sculpting programs and in many of those programs the rotate works exactly like you were questioning. You can be on the sculpt then just move off the model into free space to rotate. Always peek at Pilou's repository. He has so many awesome programs listed in there. Its like a mini Bible of 3d modeling. Check out the Rebelle paint program. I found it in there. Absolutely amazing what it can do. You can make the paint run. he he.

So many thoughts in my brain... You have to try this sometime. Use your graphics tablet with Rocket 3f. then save as Obj. and load them into Moi3D. You can create some incredible creations. Rocket is a little tricky. But once you get it and with a pen tablet it works so well. Also try Wings 3d. And of course Blender. Then send em over to Moi. There is some really cool matcaps in Rocket. Peace out.

@ Specktech Glad you find my little site some useful! :)