Over the past few decades, as graphics tablets have become more popular, the digital art scene has experienced incredible growth.
The role of the digital graphics tablet has undergone a transformative repositioning and development, from its origins as a tool to assist CAD design, to 1988 when graphics tablets successfully entered the market as a product to be used in the field of advertising design.
The breakthrough moment for graphics tablets came in 1991 however, when Disney realized that the product could actually be harnessed to create animation and subsequently utilized the technology in the production of “Beauty and the Beast’. After this milestone, graphics tablets were embraced throughout film, animation, game production, and other professional art fields.
Of course, as science and technology have progressed, so too has the evolution of the graphics tablet. Thanks to this technology, professional users can quickly and easily undo their last operation, remedying any painting errors in real time to streamline the creative process.
Li Kangyong, Director of Product Planning, explained that XPPen products accompany users throughout their growth process, and that user experience is the ultimate standard for judging whether a stylus display is truly excellent.
Whether it's the stylus technology upgrade, the screen's color performance and friction feel, or even additional functions like stability or drivers, all the technologies have been developed and integrated to provide the user with a confident comprehensive overall experience.
To this end, XPPen promotes company development through technological and organizational innovations, ensuring that each product has been ultimately developed to revolve around the user’s needs.
XPPen hopes that cutting-edge technologies can bring a seamless human-computer interaction experience, not only to artists, but everyone in the world, allowing for each person to truly unleash their creative potential.
Nevertheless, despite this technological progression, it is an inarguable fact that a number of practical issues still remain. The most obvious of these constraints is how to reproduce the tactile sensation inherent to pen and paper creation, to enable users to also produce exquisite line drawings within this medium.
In a pursuit to remedy the issues inhibiting industry development, renowned graphic tablet brand XPPen engaged its X-INNOLAB innovation lab to invest into researching and developing the Artist Pro 16 (Gen 2), integrating many cutting-edge black technologies to empower artistic expression with innovative science and technology.
The original intention of establishing X-INNOLAB was to promote technological innovation and allow for drawing tablet products in the digital drawing field to be upgraded. The goal of this pursuit was not only to ensure that solutions could be developed for a more precise, smoother and realistic drawing experience, but also that drawing tablets that offer a technologically advanced, high-performance, human-centric experience could be developed for professional creators.
XPPen is supported by X-INNOLAB in providing strategic guidance and technical support as well as promoting the competitiveness and leading position of products in the market. This goal has been achieved by deeply understanding user needs, industry trends and technological developments, surpassing product technology bottlenecks, optimizing user experience and promoting product innovation and progress.
Two huge features for artists
Two profoundly impactful features integrated within the Artist Pro 16 (Gen 2) design are the 16K pressure levels technology and the new generation X3 Pro chip developed by X-INNOLAB - which is an iteration of the X3 chip released in 2021.
During the two years of development, the technical team overcame data transmission bottlenecks caused by improved pressure sensitivity, and challenges to the overall production process and consistency brought by precision improvements. Compared with the previous generation, the X3 Pro chip stylus supports calculation of up to 16K pressure levels data, to allow for even the most delicate of lines to be produced.
Another major innovation by XPPen is the integration of digital computing chips into the stylus which accurately capture and transmit pressure information during drawing and ensure that digital signals eliminate any interference and errors from analog signals.
In order to ensure accurate data transmission by the sensor, technical staff re-optimized the data channels and reconstructed algorithms, so that data capture, transmission, and processing can all be controlled within milliseconds. As the pressure increases, so too does the data transmission rate by about 10% in the same period of time.
In order to prevent the displacement of the pen tip affecting accuracy, the X-INNOLAB innovation lab also upgraded and optimized the magnetic core material and developed a specially equipped calibration program that achieves higher precision pen positioning and a reduction of errors during long-term use.
It is precisely due to this combination of innovations that XPPen is able to provide users with a unified overall experience. The continuous iteration of these advanced technologies also guarantees the performance, quality and ease of use of drawing tablets products.
A Strong Year for XPPen
2023 has been a strong year of growth for XPPen and its innovation lab, X-INNOLAB has already made sufficient preparations for the emergence of future developments.
Whether it's the 16K pressure levels technology or the X3 Pro chip, it's all about continuously strengthening a truly excellent unified consistency experience. These technologies will also broaden industry application scenarios and unleash the potential of limitless imagination to the world.
