Previously we tested EasyCanvas with an Android device. Today, we tested EasyCanvas again but with an iPad Air 4.

Our host PC is an AMD 7840HS. We get around 90 FPS when the iPad is connected to the PC via an USB cable. We weren't able to get wifi connection working, unfortunately. Make sure you check the 'Winodws Ink' checkbox in Expresii so that Expresii uses the standard pen API of Windows instead of Wintab DLL like those shipped by Wacom XP-Pen or Huion.

The following video shows how the painting experience is when the auto-setter is enabled.   It alsos shows that you can change the brush visualization.

We  were lucky enough to have a chance to present a gift to Dr. Jensen Huang while he was in Hong Kong.  The gift is a piece of calligraphy hand-written with Expresii by our Dr. Nelson Chu.   The text written is a poem made with the help of ChatGPT AI. The following is a video documenting its making.

On 23 November 2024, Jensen Huang received an honorary doctorate   in engineering from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST). Dr. Chu  was honored to    present the gift to Dr. Huang on the same day.   Both Dr. Huang and Dr. Chu are now fellow HKUST alumni.​   ^_^    

The first characters of each verse are from the Chinese names of Jensen Huang (仁勲) and Nvidia (輝達). Here is a  short  English   explanation of the text:

仁芯拓算力: Jensen’s chips (pun ‘kind heart’) expands computing power.
勲業領風流: Nvidia (‘distinguished work’) leading the way.
輝影繪千變: Computer imagery transforms. 
達智創新猷: Reaching intelligence, creating new strategies.

The stamp ‘墨戲’ (MoXi) on the upper right of the piece  was from a physical seal and is the name of the software prototype Dr. Chu made at HKUST.   The  sundial on the lower left was painted by Dr. Chu digitally while he was at HKUST around 2006 using the MoXi prototype. 

Calligraphy is a highly regarded art form in East-Asian cultures.   In late 90's, Dr. Chu set off to create a virtual brush system for digital calligraphy  & painting.  That was also the dawn of modern GPU computing - in early 2000's, Nvidia made the first GPU with programmable shading, together with  software components like the Cg language,   that can be used for general purposes including fluid simulation.  With the help of the latest GPU technology, Dr. Chu was able to unveil a software   prototype   featuring a virtual brush   in 2002 and present the MoXi prototype  featuring both virtual brush and virtual ink at SIGGRAPH 2005.   You can say it was Dr. Huang's company that made Dr. Chu's dream come true!   Dr. Chu's   MoXi research paper   was also the first all-local-effort SIGGRAPH paper attributed to HKUST and Hong Kong.  

We thank the HKUST management for allowing such a gift presentation to happen. The smile on Jensen's face was priceless! We also thank Helen, Vv, Wilson Yuen and Tiffany Tang for their support!

In mid-October,  we had an opportunity to work with Hong Kong Dance Company  for a show called "After Snowfall - Expressions of Wang Xizhi’s timeless brushstrokes大型舞蹈詩《快雪時晴》 —— 王羲之書法隨想". Essentially, it's a dance show inspired by a calligraphy work by Wang Xizhi. The HK Dance Company would like to add some technology element into the mix.   

We did some calligraphy and painting under the theme of dance.   For the four days of dance performance, fives Expresii digital ink works were made:  【香港舞蹈團】、【鼓舞飛揚】、【扇舞翩躚】、【蹈歌墨舞】、【傘舞輕旋】.

For calligraphy videos, please see our Facebook page:  HKDance香港舞蹈團    Drum 鼓舞飛揚    Fan扇舞翩躚    Song蹈歌墨舞

The "CoPilot+ PC" Surface Pro 11 and Surface Laptop 7 became available since June 2024. We tested them in June but were rather disapointed with the performance: we got only 17 FPS on the X Elite model with OpenGL implementation Mesa 24.1.0.  Now a few months have passed and we found some good performance  increase: we now get 50 FPS with   Mesa 24.3.0!  

Microsoft has probably also optimized the Prism emulator to give the performance boost. There is still on ARM-native version of Expresii so we still need to rely on the Prism emulator.   If you want to use Sufrace Pro 11 for Expresii, make sure you use the X Elite model instead of the X Plus  model, because the latter only gives 22 FPS now. Also, note that the new Surface Laptop 7 DO NOT support pen input (older models of Surface Laptop do).   If you want  smooth performance for painting, you should pick up older models like the Surface Pro 8 i5, which can give 100+ FPS.

VMWare has recently made their virutal machine software Fusion free-for-personal-use. The current version also supports OpenGL 4.2, which is more than what Expresii requires. We gave a shot on running Expesii using it. The good news is that Expresii  runs without error.

However, one hurdle is that graphics tablets are not plug-and-play.

We finally got  tablet  input working using another piece of softwar called USB Network Gate:

And here is how everything working together:

Performance is only 30-40 FPS on a M1 Mac Book Air, not as good as using Parallels Desktop.  Anyway, this is still one option you can use Expresii on a modern Mac with an ARM  chip. We hope VMware continued to imprve the performance  and also the USB device pass-through. 

We took part in the Hong Kong Illustration and Creative Show 2024 Spring, giving  some talk or demonstrattion at the CGLive booth.  During his talk, our Dr. Nelson Chu showed a little sneak peak of what he's working on for simulating Western watercolor. 

​​We are lucky to have Sensei Shuen to give a demonstration at the booth.  You can learn a lot from her on ink painting and the use of Expresii:

This piece "劔舞乾坤" (sword dance) is spirited.  The subject's pose, the composition, the linework, the contrast all contributed to the energetic look of it. Find out how it's done in the above video!

And here's the calligraphy our Dr. Nelson Chu did  as inscription for the painting:

The all new WACOM Movink was on pre-oder at the show. It's among the few places  where you can try the new hardware first hand. Pretty good price at HKD5889 there (compared to the offcial price in another region next to Hong Kong)! It's really thin and light.

Once again, we were honored to have Sensei Shuen give an ink painting demo at the Hong Kong Illustraion and Creative Show last weekend. This time we   use the new Wacom Cintiq Pro 22:

Watch the process:

We also  offered a free Ink painting class.  Within the one-hour class,  Sensei Shuen taught us how to paint simple subjects like punkin, tangerine, and wisteria.   We are amazed by   students'  interesting designs! 

Gradually, we're making digital ink painting more popular. We thank CGLive for organizing the class!

In 2014, we tried our hands on a USD150   8" Windows tablet.  Our watercolor flows on such a device, but the Atom-based CPU is rather weak to give a very smooth run. In recent years, more and more handheld gaming devices emerged including quite some running Windows. Among them is the OneXPlayer 2 - one that supports stylus input, touch and its game controllers are detachable, making it possible to be used as an 8" tablet PC!

A few years back, many of those handheld PC's from GPD or OneNetbook  use Intel CPU's.  They are not bad for every-day tasks, but when it comes to integrated GPU performance, those Intel chips were not as good as those from AMD.  Since the last couple of years, thanks to the booming mobile gaming industry, there's a wave of AMD-based gaming handheld coming out, the most recent one being the    Lenovo's Legion Go.  Today we got hold of a OneXPlayer 2 with AMD 6800u and 32GB RAM to test Expresii on. This is last-year's model, and they have a refresh called the OneXPlayer 2 Pro using the AMD 7840U. 

In our tests, the 6800u OneXPlayer 2 can run Expresii smoothly even at 15W max. The device is not primarily designed for painting, or using the pen in general, and we would suggest a few improvements to the design of the system if OneNetbook, the company behind OneXPlayer, wish to cater for pen usage more: 1. when the machine is used like a laptop with the official keyboard attached, the pen stroking on the upper corners of the screen would make the device wobble.   2. device cannot be used like a tablet lying flat on the table, since the air intake grille is on the back. To fix 1, the kickstand can be made wider like the Surface Pro or the latest Lenovo Legion Go. To fix 2, rubber feet could be added, just like for a normal laptop. For the current users, a makeshift could be mobile phone kickstands that stick to the back of the device. Use ones that adds 4 mm or more, so that they double as feet for lying the device flat.

The OneXPlayer 2 is a bit heavy at 719g   and clunky to hold single-handed.  The heat it produces along with fan noise can also be annoying. The model we have has an APU 6800u produced on 6nm process. With the latest models with APU 7840u or 7640u, which are made on 4nm, the heat is reduced and battery life prolonged.  

Once again, the gaming industry has brought about hardware trend that also benefits us as artists. BTW, It's interesting that OneNetbook  recently announced the OneMix 5, one that looks like a mini Surface Laptop Studio that ues a "Z-fold" design, and the first video on this device on their official Bilibili channel is on painting.   Looks like they are also interesting in the digital artist market. 

We have invited  Sensei Shuen  to demo ink painting  at the Hong Kong Illustration and Creative Show on 26 June 2023. Listen to Sensei   Shuen  (in Cantonese, with English subtitle) as she paints, with tips in using Expresii and WACOM hardware:

Thanks for visiting!  Hopefully more people are aware of our invention and effort in digital painting development.

The spec of Windows machine used for the demo:

Basically, you need a good GPU  (graphics card) to run Expresii smoothly.  e.g. an nvidia 1060 with 6GB vRAM is good for running Expresii smoothly on a 4K monitor. If you're only using a full-HD monitor, you can go by with modern integrated  GPU like Intel Iris Xe. For example, the Microsoft Surface Pro 7 (i7) or 8 (i5) can already run Expresii smoothly on their own 2.5k monitor.

We thank CGLive and Wacom Hong Kong for their support!

I was told that recently Japanese calligraphy, or just Japanese culture in general, is much appreciated in Germany   and Wacom has been showing Expresii for calligraphy in their German Experience Center in the past few months in events like "Night of Museums", or "Japan Day":

Wacom official artist Miki Amano is also showing the public the use of Expresii with Wacom tablets for digital calligraphy, with   sample works   including their official tagline written in Chinese. 

In China, calligraphy has been the basic training for painting - it lets the artist acquire the dexterity for controlling the brush.   Also, calligraphy is inherently an abstract art form.  Arguably, cursive calligraphy is considered the highest form of art in China. No wonder why Pablo Picasso said "Had I Been Born Chinese, I Would Have Been A Calligrapher, Not A Painter."