With all the hype from the Origami Project, I thought I’d share a bit about my favorite app for tablets and what makes it so great (and one of the only things that makes a TabletPC worth owning, in my opinion).

Alias Sketchbook Pro is a freehand pixel-based paint program specifically designed for pen-based input. it’s designers have perfected the drawing experience for a pen-on-screen device. And on top of it they’ve given it a very clever UI that seamlessly promotes the user from using menus to using gestures. It’s amazing. As a UI designer I carry with me my laptop and a sketchbook, and the new Origami tablets look like a great size to duplicate a sketchbook experience.

So, what makes Alias Sketchbook Pro so good? I can break it down into a few different bits:

• Focused on a single thing: getting the sketch experience right.
• UI optimized for speed and pen-based input

Getting the sketch experience right

The Sketchbook Pro dev team made getting the “feel” of the sketch tools their top priority, and they got it nearly perfect. I’ve used tablets for over ten years and I can tell you that they’ve never felt quite natural to me. They’ve always required a bit of getting used to both their tracking and pressure. But Sketchbook Pro does an amazing job at replicating the pen-to-paper experience while reducing the side-effects of the technology to almost nil.

If you’re not familiar with a Tablet PC, let me catch you up. There are models where the screen is not a touch screen, and in fact you can rest the full weight of your hand on the screen without worry. All the magic is in a special pen with a pressure-sensitive tip. This means that the tablet tracks the pen without it touching the screen. When you do touch it to the screen it acts as a left-click. And Alias Sketchbook Pro can detect the amount of pressure I’m putting on the pen and adjust the ink accordingly. The pen even has a pressure sensitive eraser on it’s end. This is the type of tablet that I own.

Tablets have had pressure sensitivity for a long time, and many programs have supported it. But it took Sketchbook Pro to get the feel of it right. It greatly outperforms Photoshop in this regard (which has excellent pressure support). Just a bit of pressure produces sub-pixel lines that are barely visible, and I never feel like I’m getting too much ink for the pressure I’m giving it. That is a common problem I have with Photoshop, even after I’ve adjusted all the settings. Putting a bit more pressure on the pen in Sketchbook Pro makes the ink flow more, but without overflowing and blobbing up, which again is an occasional problem for me with Photoshop.

I did the entire scratch test below with one pencil tool, with a single brush size, and a single pen color. Other than varying the pressure by pressing harder while drawing, I never changed a single pen setting, and it has not been shrunk down to fit my blog.

The screen-update response is quick, and I can sketch as fast as I do in real life and not worry about jagged curves or dropped lines. I get smoother lines in Sketchbook Pro on my woefully underpowered Toshiba TabletPC than I get with Photoshop on my desktop workhorse.

I can’t stress enough that the attention to detail in the stroke “feel” makes all the difference, especially when using it with a pen-to-screen input device. And I know you’re thinking: if it’s so close to real sketching, why not just use good old fashioned paper and pencil? Well, I’ll tell you why: Layers.

Although Sketchbook Pro doesn’t have a lot of the “classic” drawing tools that a lot of people expect in a paint program, it does have layer support. And that makes doing things like blue construction lines, inking, and painting a lot easier. Mixing a traditional sketch metaphor with the power of layers is like having the most powerful light table and tracing paper in the world. Just being able to do a single inking with multiple sets of color studies has saved me a lot of time, and allowed me to experiment more than I would with paper.

Great UI

So, on top of this wonderful line structure, sketchbook pro has a great UI. The entire program is designed to work quickly and easily without relying on the keyboard. For example, naming layers is incredibly easy. You just draw into the name area, and the program doesn’t bother with trying to covert it to text. You don’t even need to write text – you can draw a picture. Not relying on a keyboard (or ink-to-text) is important because really the only way to use a tablet PC ergonomically is to use it without the keyboard available. It would be nice to have layer icons, though. Hopefully in the next version?

Radial Menus that promote advancement

Perhaps the most interesting part of the UI is their radial stroke-through menu system. When you click on a menu icon, a radial menu appears and you simply drag a line through your desired choice and release. You don’t need to click it; just have the line pass through it when you release.

At first I thought this was a gimmick that someone at Alias added to be different, but I soon realized these radial menus have an unique trait. As I continued to use the program I found myself “sketching” some of the menu items without thinking, because the stroke-through aspect makes it quick to do without requiring accuracy. Slowly, menu items became gestures to me, starting with the ones I use the most. I didn’t have to consciously think about it, it just happened over time as I was learning the menus. It’s rare to see a UI that promotes such growth and scales so gracefully. I can’t recall another UI that’s done that.

Sketchbook Pro also features some other unique UI elements, like their zoom puck and placement puck. They’re quite powerful UI widgets that allow you target an area of your document as well as access several different modes of operation, all without keyboard commands or mode switching.

A final note

Sketchbook pro doesn’t have a gradient tool. Or a straight-line tool. Or a circle tool, a rectangle tool, or a Fill tool, or color balance controls. It’s missing a lot of the things that most people associate with paint programs these days, and occasionally I yearn for some of these. But Sketchnook Pro is not meant to be a Photoshop replacement. It is all about duplicating the freehand experience, and then making it better and more flexible. And Alias has done a stellar job. If you own a Tablet PC or some other pen-to-screen device (like a Wacom Cintiq) I truly encourage you to check out Sketchbook Pro’s free trial. I think you’ll be impressed.

Check out their site: Alias Sketchbook Pro

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