Graphics Tablet

The first electronic handwriting tablet was the Telautograph, patented by Elisa Gray in 1888. Elisha Gray is best known as a contemporaneous inventor of the telephone to Alexander Graham Bell. The first graphics tablet resembling contemporary tablets and used for handwriting recognition by a computer was the Stylator in 1957. Better known (and often mis-stated as the first digitizer tablet) is the rand tablet, also known as the grafacon, introduced in 1964. The RAND Tablet employed a grid of wires under the surface of the pad that encoded horizontal and vertical coordinates in a small magnetic signal. The stylus would receive the magnetic signal, which could then be decoded back as coordinate information. Graphics tablets, because of their stylus-based interface and ability to detect some or all of pressure, tilt, and other attributes of the stylus and its interaction with the tablet, are widely considered to offer a very natural way to create computer graphics, especially two-dimensional computer graphics. Indeed, many graphics packages are able to make use of the pressure (and, sometimes, stylus tilt or rotation) information generated by a tablet, by modifying the brush size, shape, opacity, color, or other attributes based on data received from the graphics tablet. Graphic Tablets are also very commonly found in the artistic world. Using a pen on a graphics tablet combined with a graphics editing program, such as Adobe Photoshop, give artists a lot of precision while creating digital drawings. Photographers can also find working with a graphics tablet during their post processing can really speed tasks like creating a detailed layer mask or dodging and burning. Educators make use of tablets in classrooms to project handwritten notes or lessons and allow students to do the same, as well as providing feedback on student work submitted electronically. Online teachers may also use a tablet for marking student work, or for live tutorials or lessons, especially where complex visual information or mathematics equations are required. Tablets are also popular for technical drawings and CAD, as one can put a piece of paper on them without interfering with their function. Finally, tablets are gaining popularity as a replacement for the computer mouse as a pointing device. They can be more intuitive to some users than a mouse, as the position of a pen on a tablet typically corresponds to the location of the pointer on the GUI shown on the computer screen. Those artists using a pen for graphics work will as a matter of convenience use a tablet and pen for standard computer operations rather than put down the pen and find a mouse. Graphics tablets are available in various sizes and price ranges; A6-sized tablets being relatively inexpensive and A3-sized tablets being far more expensive. Modern tablets usually connect to the computer via a USB interface.  In my mind, this is the best designer product ever, it tranforms the information from the real world into the digital world, which is sort of like a mouse that transforms the action in the real world into the digital world.I do think every designer will need one in their careers. Aodong Wei