Following our last blog entry, we continue to test Expresii on the Deskmini A300, this time with external graphics cards.   We only bought two   new items: 1. M.2 to PCI-E x4 Adapter Card (US$2; US$6 at Amazon),  2.  PCI-E x1 to x16 ribbon cable (US$4; similar item $17 at Amazon) from taobao.  This setup needs an external power supply and we simply use one from our other PC's.   

We tried an nvidia GTX 1060 and two lower-end cards GT 640 and GTX 750 Ti.   The M.2 adapter slot is not open-ended so in order to insert the graphics cards directly onto it, we need to first cut it open (reference).

We get 180+ FPS on 4k with the 1060 connected at 4x PCI-E speed.  When at 1x (via ribbon cable), we get only 80+ FPS.  At Full-HD, we get 180+ FP with 4x;   150+ FPS, 1x. With lower-end cards, we basically only get around 30 FPS, which is even much lower then what we get with the integrated Radeon Vega 11 in the Ryzen 2400G (95+ FPS).

With adapter and cable totaling a mere US$6, we are able to test out the external GPU setup with either 1x and 4x PCI-E speed. You  probably want to use a US$89 riser    (similar item US$43 at taobao) instead for easier setup with 4x speed for for proper performance. Or, at least this adapter+cable (US$17 at taobao) to minimize physical interfaces.

​We're satisfied by the performance increase from Ryzen APU 2400G's Vega 11 GPU running at 95+ FPS on  Full-HD to GTX 1060 running at 180+ FPS on 4k  monitor.

See this   youtube video  for adapter & cable options.

We're often asked what PC would be good to run Expresii. ​ ​In this blog entry we show you a few mini PC options. Note that if you don't need a PC such small, there're cheaper solutions if you build regular ITX PC's, which are a bit bigger.  

​For your reference, we tested a mini PC using the Asrock Deskmini A300. Specifically, we built a system with a AMD Ryzen 5 2400G CPU, 16 GB of DDR4 2666MHz RAM, and a 2.5" 256GB SSD hard drive.  The Ryzen  2400G has an integrated GPU Radeon RX Vega 11, which performs much better than those integrated GPU's from Intel, is fast enough for running Expresii smoothly. Note that you can still go by with 8GB of RAM and just 128GB of storage space if you have a tighter budget.

The DeskMini PC box is only 15 x 15 x 8 cm, with the power brick  1/6 of the box size. Total hardware cost the main unit  (i.e. excluding monitor, mouse and keyboard) is USD380.  ​ Depending on how you get a license for   Windows OS, the final cost could be sub-$400. There are also ready-to-use pre-built units available at e.g. Amazon at around $620 (OS included) ​ for those of you who don't want to build a PC yourselves.

I once had a   Mac Mini    but it died in just a few years - since the CPU is soldered onto the main board, I can not simply replace the faulty component like I can with a regular PC. ​ What is great about this Deskmini is that you can still upgrade the various components like CPU, RAM, storage like you do with a regular PC.   So I think the  a mini PC  with Ryzen 2400G & Asrock Deskmini A300 is a   sweet spot  on price, compactness & ability to change components.

On such a system with Ryzen 2400G, we get 95 FPS  when using a FHD (1920 x 1080) monitor.   The mainboard allows a little overclocking of the RAM, and we get 100+ FPS if we overclock the RAM from 2666 to 3000 MHz. 

The Deskmini also has an Intel version, but the supported Intel GPU's (e.g. HD 630) are much slower so we don't recommend the Intel variant.

The m2 eGPU kit with power supply mentioned in the 2nd video costs $116 from Ali Express (get the same thing + power supply for $50 from taobao if you can read Chinese and get them ship to your region). A used GTX 1060 with 6GB RAM could be as low as $135 on eBay. So, with a few hundreds of dollars you can add a powerful graphics card with when you need it.   For even cheaper solution, look at this guide and buy the NGFF version (i.e. for M.2)  dock. More reference here.

If you   have some more money to spare, and don't want to mess around with PC building, we recommend the Intel   Hades Canyon NUC:

The   Intel   Hades Canyon NUC  (Vega M GH, 16Gb RAM, 256 GB SSD at $1300)  is even  smaller than the Asrock DeskMini A300 yet much more powerful.   Its   Radeon RX Vega M GH GPU, which is much faster than the Vega 11 in the Deskmini,  allows you to run Expresii on a 4k monitor smoothly. If the 1k+ price tag is a litte too high, thre's also a version with a slower GPU  Vega M GL.   Also, look at eBay and sometimes there're offers in the $500-600 range as a barebone (i.e. you add your own RAM and storage).

Other ready-to-use mini PC's with   Radeon RX Vega M GH GPU (but not as tiny as the Intel NUC) include   this    Beelink Kaby G7   (with 16GB RAM + 256 GB SSD at $1150)  and   the   HiGame from Chuwi  at $1300.    

Conclusion?   You don't need a huge PC to run Expresii fast! ​╭( ･ㅂ･)و ̑̑    

We use the Quarter Mode of Expresii to create the ambigram《瑞豬 己亥迎春》. This mode shows the reflected images as you paint. 

We export the ambigram    from Expresii as a snapshot, which we then import into Inkscape for further manipulation.  After some arrangement, we print the design onto paper to make a paper cut.   We even pair the ambigram with a double-sided QR code, which we wrote a program to generate with reference to   Aleksey Tikhonov's article.  

Flipping the ambigram and testing  double-side QR code:

Here's the final product. Check out  our previous blog entry to learn more: 

​And here's one video that shows the whole process:

#翻轉字 #アンビグラム

The   2019 Hong Kong Electronics Fair (Spring Edition) is a huge show.  Among the many exhibitors is Huion:

And in case you wonder: the laptop used was a Huawei Honor   MagicBook with AMD 2500U &  Vega 8 GPU.   It ran Expresii at around 60 FPS, with screen being Full-HD.   See a review of the machine here:
https://www.notebookcheck.net/Honor-Magicbook-Intel-8250U-vs-AMD-2500U-Laptop-Review.344731.0.html
The AMD model is cheaper than the Intel + Nvidia MX150 model, but is only about half as fast for GPU performance.

We also visited PiPO's booth.   Glad to have a chance to talk to Ben Lai, the owner of PiPO.  He is kind to share his views and offer advice on the Chinese market. ​  Note that we used PiPO's US$150 W5 back in 2014 to demo Expresii.

We also had a chance to try out Expresii on some of their devices.  Unfortunately, we are not able to even read the pen pressure on their  2-in-1 tablet   device   with   Celeron CPU.   On their Atom-powered device (shown below), we are able to get pen pressure but the responsiveness is not the best. PiPO now switched to using Active pen instead of EMR technology as in the W5.

Expresii is being used for producing the animated feature film  Red Squirrel Mai 紅松鼠米高. Do check out    the teaser above (those from China can see it  here)!  This film uses Expresii extensively - both animation background and foreground  are drawn with Expresii.   The teaser video is shown at Hong Kong Filmart 2019 earlier this month.   We thank   Ink Culture Ltd and Rooftop Animation for producing such a meaningful work - this animation is the first one made in Hongkong/China that has a distinct style different from all previous works.   It's been only less than two years from the setting up studios in Hong Kong and GuangZhou.   

Ink wash animation  is a  proud product of China from the 60's to the 80's. Nowadays,   many attempts have been made to modernize ink wash animation.   Our Expresii does provide a refreshing visual style that couldn't be achieved before.

One of the film Director Angela Wong draw Mai the squirrel, the movie  protagonist,    on the spot:

Visitors can get a glimpse of of the production processing:

Our Nelson demonstrates calligraphy in the show:

And also some doodles (after the  famous comic artist 草日 from Hong Kong):

An inkjet printer was also setup there to print artwork done with Expresii on the spot:

We're lucky to encounter Kumamon as our Mai just stepped out of our booth: ^_^

 P.S. Now you know why we have to put up a notice forbidding new users to use Expresii for making feature films till later in 2019.   ^_^

I can't  emphasize  enough on Pressure+Tilt.  The minute change in your hand movement should translate to the marks you are making. 
用Expresii作畫，最好配有 【側鋒感應】 的繪圖筆。一劃、一點、一提、一按 ，特別有韻味╭( ･ㅂ･)و ̑̑       

Recently  there are more tablet makers releasing models that support pen tilt sensing.  One of them is Huion.  

We got hold of a new version of  Huion H950P (US$80) that supports tilt sensing.   The following is a quick demo video of using the Huion H950P.   以下試用 《繪王》品牌的 950P 繪圖板，利用【側鋒(tilt)】+【筆壓】做出多變筆觸：

用後覺得，硬件方面，build quality 很好、筆很輕，且重心適中地落在握筆位置，還配有像Wacom 的rubber grip，故拿筆不累。筆不用電池所以不用換電或者充電。 軟件方面，Huion 自家config程式有時會偵測不到板子，不過這算小問題，且有機會日後軟件更新可解決。還一個小問題是那個火山口形的筆座的設計：筆座看起來是學Wacom 的，但卻改小了。可能Huion 不知原 Wacom 設計，是筆平躺和直插均可，改小了的Huion  筆座承托範圍有限，令  平放筆時很容易掉下，直插時卻又不知為何弄到筆座凹處跟筆頭角度不匹配，導致插着怪怪的不穩當。∑(O_O；)​

相比Wacom 的專業有tilt 系列，Huion 的價格絕對是優勢(現在最平宜有tilt 的Wacom 是Intuos Pro Small US$238)。用慣Wacom 的筆者，發現 Huion 的筆，壓下去很容易就到壓感最高值，而Wacom 的是 壓值越接近最高值你越要用力，所以挺不習慣。現在Expresii 是較適合Wacom 那種壓感特性的，所以現在用Huion 寫字覺得有點難控制(已試過調pressure curve)。也許這是個人習慣問題，所以建議大家先到體驗店親身試試看。有機會我們會把Expresii 的内部pressure curve 調控範圍廣大，希望可以有所改善，或者希望Huion 也可以硬件或者軟件上加入讓用家可切換成模擬Wacom那種壓感反應的可能，還有希望提供像Wacom 那種有彈簧的筆尖，以便更好模擬毛筆的提按。筆者覺得，寫不寫到好字，那個筆尖’軟硬‘度跟軟件配合是成敗關鍵。

還有一點要點讚是，Huion 的斜度感應，像Wacom那樣是懸空時也可以讀到的。要知道其實Surface Pen 跟Apple Pencil懸空時是讀不到 tilt 的呢（2019-03-06 更新：Surface Pen 起碼在 Surface Go 上有hover tilt，但2017 Surface Pro還是沒有）。懸空有tilt 有什麽好處？就是讓我們下筆一刻，可看到筆頭正確角度，清楚知道下筆是怎麼樣的筆觸咯～

期待之後試用他們有tilt 感應的pen display，如US$400 的   Kamvas Pro 13。

I am too used to Wacom's pressure profile. ​​A Wacom stylus requires significantly more force to reach the max pressure value in comparison to the Huion.  Right now Expresii is more tuned for Wacom's pressure response so it's a bit hard to control the height of the virtual brush to do calligraphy with the Huion. It could be a personal preference, but so far even after adjusting the pressure curve in both Huion's tool and also in Expresii (yes, internally we do have it), I was still not able to write as well as I can with a Wacom.  I'd try to adapt the pressure curve and see if helps. I also hope Huion can adjust the spring in their stylus so that it can better mimic a brush.  I'm glad that they would invite me to their Shenzhen Headquarters.  I haven't met them yet  and I look forward to a fruitful discussion.

I  think Huion's stylus sensing technology is really close to that of Wacom. Huion's tilt reading is as stable as Wacom's, and I'm glad to see tilt reading is also available while hovering, just like a Wacom (note that Surface Pen and Apple Pencil won't give tilt reading during hovering). Previously, the main advantage of Wacom is its ability to sense pen tilt+twist (i.e. 6 DOF totally).   No other stylus makers can sense pen twist just yet, so Wacom still have some technical advantage.   I have always been eager to tell Wacom what to improve in their technology and I  did tell them last time I was at Connected Ink. However, I'm not sure if they would do anything about what I said.

I look forward to testing Huion's new Pen Display featuring tilt sensing such as  the  US$400    Kamvas Pro 13.

In conclusion, I think the Huion has made signification improvement (last time I tried it wasn't that great) and is now  a company that can rival Wacom. This would be good for the consumers as they now have more choices that are budget-friendly. I hope Wacom can up their game by developing new technology for brush sensing.   I am of course always ready to offer my opinions on how things can be improved.

- Nelson Chu

The Good:

• Low cost
• Nice    build quality
• Pen is battery-free, light-weight, with    good weight balance

​The Bad:

• Sometimes their own software tool couldn't detect the tablet

We thank   Huion Hong Kong  for providing the hardware  and Huion Taiwan for connection. 

🍊🧧 🏮   Best Wishes for the  Year Of The Pig  🐖  2019 瑞豬 己亥 迎春     🏮​🧧🌱

Ambigram 瑞豬   ⇔   己亥 迎春
See it displayed on Surface Pro's / interactively    

We designed the ambigram [瑞豬 ⇔   己亥 迎春]​ using Expresii's new quarter mode to celebrate the New Year of the Pig. T he year 2019 is marked as  [己亥]  in the lunar calendar.  [迎春] means welcoming spring;     [瑞豬] pig that brings luck.    Paper Cut is good for showing flip-type ambigrams since you can easily flip the paper to show different sides of the design.

It's common to display lanterns for  Lunar New Year.  We therefore try our hands on making a few lanterns featuring our ambigram greetings. We wanted to have a blend of tradition  & tech and also make the piece interactive so we made an attempt to embed    QR code  into the design  - not just any QR code but ones that can be read from both sides carrying different messages just like an ambigram!   To complete such a design, artist ability alone is not enough. 

To make our two-sided QR code,  we  asked   Prof. Tim Leung   of HKUST to help with the number crunching.   Specifically, we need to write a computer program to untie the knot in producing two-sided QR Codes.   

​'​We have a UG student working on this problem. It's a good training for the student, which involves math and  (computer) coding​,' said Prof. Leung.  Our Dr. Nelson Chu, designer behind the ambigrams and lanterns, is an alumnus of HKUST and hopes to get current HKUST students inspired by interesting projects like this.  ’This is a typical real-world problem we need to solve everyday. In contrast, usually  clear instructions are given in a school assignment. But now one needs to be critical and be able to judge the correctness in the information gathered', said Dr. Chu.   'There may be more solution to one problem, and some hidden issues yet to be solved.'

And here comes the Moment of Truth - see if the two-sided QR Codes work in the following video:      (*ﾟﾛﾟ)

And if you are to try  out our 2-sided QR codes, note that some QR code scanners would only give the message  from one side because they would flip the input automatically.  We use this scanner  on Android, which can read the two messages.

This lantern creation is a perfect example of STEAM ( STEM+Art) projects.   Apart from trying to get involved in multi-discipline activities, we strongly encourage students to learn computer programming regardless their majors. Being able to program a computer is empowering. You don't need to wait for someone to make a program suitable for your needs, you can just create one ​whenever creativity strikes!    Being able to make the first move and create something never existed before makes you a leader rather than a follower.

“近年，教育界提出新的「STEAM」框架，亦即在原本的「STEM」加入藝術（Art）的意涵，強調未來的學生應培養跨領域素養和能力。” (wikipedia)

STEM 是美國先提倡，然後香港、台灣等地跟隨。我們其實一直做的就是STEAM的工作：從一開始用 物理原理 模擬 毛筆，用 流體力學 做 數碼水墨，到現在開發 中文 翻轉字 (ambigramアンビグラム) 工具，全部都把藝術、文化、科技等結合，做出前所未有的新產品。我們非常歡迎各學校共同辦好STEAM 教育，讓我們的學生Future Ready，迎接未來的挑戰！東方文化有很多值得發展的地方，希望一天我們是領導者，而不是跟隨者。╭( ･ㅂ･)و )))​

P.S. We'll post making-of for the laterns in a later blog entry. Stay tuned. 

​'Flip' Icon made by Vaadin ​   from www.flaticon.com

It was great to be back to Japan, a country that gives so much respect to culture and technology!  After taking part in Wacom Connected Ink 2018, we moved on to the show at SIGGRAPH ASIA 2018    in the same metropolis of Tokyo.

There were so many stuffs to see in SIGGRAPH ASIA 2018.  Our booth was located at a far corner  of the exhibition  hall so it was kind of hidden in the show.  In the same show, we have studios like   TeamLabs, Clip Studio Paint    &   Unity, along with various research institutes showing their latest developments. SIGGRAPH Student volunteers as well as visitors discovered us at this corner are all amazed by our Expresii app. If you couldn't make it to the show, here's a recap of what we have to offer:

Visitors who tried our app immediately noticed that our water-based paint simulation is the best in the world, beating even big players like Corel, Adobe or Autodesk.   We also demo'ed our new feature for creating ambigrams.  We hope to make it easier to design ambigrams with East Asian characters. We showed ambigram designs printed  on art paper and engraved on   seals. Our work is certainly aligned with SIGGRAPH ASIA's theme of art, culture and tech crossover. Everyone knowing kanji (Chinese characters 漢字) were amazed by our ambigrams as crossover of calligraphy and design.

We're glad to have a chance to talk to visitors as well as  having staff from TeamLabs and Clip Studio Paint visit our booth. Nothing is more satisfying than seeing happy faces of visitors and get direct feedback from them.  In particular, students from Sri Lanka actually kept coming back bringing their teachers and friends because they think our app is so cool! \(-ㅂ-)/ ♥ ♥ ♥  Some university professors also  visited us  and gave us compliments, citing they were amazed by Nelson Chu's work since his MoXi paper published in SIGGRAPH 2005 and glad to see Nelson in person finally!  Although most guests of SIGGRAPH Asia are from Asia, we still met guests from Western studios like Pixar showing interest in our technology. Finally, we also had an interesting technical discussion with a guest from Apple.   (￣▽￣)ノ

We thank the organizer of SIGGRAPH ASIA, led by Chair Ken Anjyo, for putting together such a nice show, and also our fellow exhibitors who put so much effort and energy into the show.

​Acknowledgement:
Thanks to Mark Lam   of    CGVisual.com  for letting us demo in their booth,   Man Tam of VTech for helping out, and  Angela Wong,  Rebecca Catquu, and Anita So of   Rooftop Animation for helping with the booth.

As Wacom's   software partner, we were demo'ing Expresii in Wacom Connected Ink   2018 held on Nov  30 in Tokyo.

​We are also partnering with Ufro Inc, maker of Mozbii. Check out our demo with Mozbii Color Capture:​

In the end of the video above, we also show sample Ambigram artwork done with Expresii.

Wacom is advocating  digital stationary and marriage of  Analog and Digital. We are definitely on the same page, since we  paint with digital tools and simulation, and then gets the result back to the analog world.

We are happy to hear visitors saying Expresii having the best digital ink simulation! Most visitors from the East readily recognize the value of our brush & ink simulation from a cultural perspective, however, we're really glad that a Caucasian visitor from Google also appreciates our contribution to further developing traditional art, and he actually really likes our ambigram of 高錕<->光纖!       (ﾉ^∇^)ﾉﾟ

We thank Wacom for holding this special event for supporting digital ink and facilitating partnership. We are staying in Tokyo for SIGGRAPH ASIA. Stay tuned for more coverage.

We added a new feature called Quarter Mode (now available to beta users, let us know if you want to be included) to facilitate the design of   ambigram  in Expresii.  ​

With new feature  of 'Quarter Mode' in Expresii, we make it easy to create ambigrams directly on a computer, as you can make strokes on one of the quarters and be able to see the result in other   quarters immediately. 

We demo with the Chinese characters for Yin (陰) and Yang (陰).   Yin-Yang is a popular subject for ambigram  previously done several times by Japanese  authors (see works done in 2009: 回文ユンブイカ, unknown author; 2010: oyadge01,  oyadge01×意瞑字査印; 2013: Issie Nomura, 2014: 意瞑字査印; 2015: 意瞑字査印, Satoshi Ito; 2018: Satoshi Ito,  ARTAKANA). In fact,   the famous Yin-Yang symbol ☯   inspired   John Langdon   to do ambigrams back in the 70's.

With Expresii, we can make the strokes with authentic calligraphic look, which sets it apart from all previous ambigrams of Eastern characters:

We hope to contribute to the development of our culture by introducing new tool for designing ambigram. In particular, since Eastern calligraphy has been done with a brush for thousands of years, we would like to make it easy to do ambigrams with authentic brush strokes. We hope you like our new feature and would love to hear your feedback!

- Nelson Chu 2018.11

P.S. 中國大陸把 Ambigram 譯成‘對稱字’，但其實Ambigram  不一定‘對稱’。Ambigram   的前 部ambi  應該有   ambiguous的意思，就是   暧昧、 含糊、  雙關 等意思。Gram 有‘圖’或‘字符’的意思。  其實我覺得Ambigram  譯作‘雙關圖’也不錯，接近我們說的‘一語雙關’，套到字圖就是‘一圖雙關’。