CompuServe Thread

#Summagraphics Tablet

4 messages in this thread
#69944From: Robert C. SeiwertDec 6, 1993 9:12 AM
Jack: I really love what been in in Rel 3.0! But you know me never happy. I was playing with Strata Pro the last night, Spline base modeling and morphing. Not only does it look smooth but the control point DB is so much smaller that the app doesn't get bogged down counting vertices. I wrote this quite a long while ago. I don't know if you know this about the summa, so I'm sending it FYI: >By the way, the cursor not only sticks, it often jumps about 2 inches. Whenever it does >that, it freezes for about 15 seconds. > Greg >Thanks Greg. I'll pass it on and see if we can't get something done about it. – J You know the summa drivers have been buggy since Rel 1.0! I thought that they would be fixed in rel 2.0! Now I see that they still don't work right in rel 3.0! Maybe ya'll (that is pronouced u-all) simply remove the built in drivers and force summa to write a ADI for 3DS. If the summa tab was my product and 3DStudio had "built-in support for the summa" why would I rewrite drivers for it? NOTE: Since I wrote this (and didn't send it) several people have replied. I would seem that the ADI from summa works fine. It is just the 3DS internal driver that causes problems (except for John!)
#69950From: Yost GroupDec 6, 1993 9:37 AM
Robert, all I can say is that we put a considerable amount of effort into making the Summa drivers work correctly in this version, and all of our beta-testers signed off on it (including in-house QA). The problems that are showing up are hardware-specific, and we just didn't have any systems that demonstrated those problems. Regardless, the Summa people have addressed the problem with their own driver, which works fine. – G
#70250From: Conrad StolzeDec 7, 1993 8:21 PM
Gary, From a VERY "Summa-frustrated" AutoCAD/3D-Studio dealer, let me relay some of the info we have developed from the Summa/ACAD world. Does your summa tablet driver use the Interrupt of Polling mode of the Summa tablet? Depending on the memory architecture of the machine (which would confirm your question about hardware specificity) we have found that Polling can cause some MAJOR pauses and delays. All series II and newer tablets can be set to be interrupt driven, and the problem always clears up. With older summa tablets, we can use CFIGPHAR to reset the -VSCAN switch to a higher number and reduce the frequency of the pauses, but not eliminate them. Does 3ds3 have a similar Pharlap switch (I know that I will run into this, and would like to be prepared). For what it's worth <g>, Chuck
#70253From: Yost GroupDec 7, 1993 8:27 PM
3DS should use the -vscan parameter the same way any other Phar Lap app does. Give it a try. Regarding exactly how our Summa code works, I'd have to have TomH dig up that code and take a look at it. – G