PressurePen Stylus and a line in action (via PressurePen)
Kickstarter is great for those of us who have an idea but cannot find the funding to get it off the ground. Exactly what Charles Mangin did with his PressurePen stylus. The target goal for his stylus was set at 10,000 US, which he achieved, and is now accepting pre-orders for the Rev2 device which is set to be delivered by November of this year (2012). So what is it and what does it do? It’s a pressure sensitive stylus for tablets (both Android-powered and iPad slates) that enables the user to gain a more natural feeling while writing or sketching/drawing artwork. In essence, it mimics how a brush stroke becomes larger the harder it is pressed.
The stylus connects to the tablet via the pads headphone jack and uses open-sourced software to detect the pens signal and pressure levels (according to Charles the stylus has 1,000 different pressure levels). At its core, the pen detects different frequency sounds that changed with the added pressure. This allows the user to draw fine and thick lines or anything in between. As it stands right now, the PressurePen make-up files for the shell, circuit board plans and source-code are available to anyone who would like to modify their own stylus. (First step, make it slimmer!)
For those interested in purchasing your own, the stylus is available now for $60 US (stylus plus, 1 replacement tip and connection cable), $80 US for the pen plus 2 extra tips or $30 for the kit you assemble yourself. Charles states that future revisions of the PressurePen will be wireless but until then there’s no draw-back or signal degradation using a tethered stylus.
Cabe