Rant: I switched from a mouse to a drawing tablet for detail work

I was doing a lot of small, tight details on a mechanical assembly drawing and my hand was cramping up after an hour with the mouse. I borrowed a Wacom Intuos tablet for a day and the pressure sensitivity let me control line weights directly, which cut my time on that section by half. Has anyone else made that switch, and did it take you long to get used to it?

3 comments

3 Comments

nancy8242mo ago

Thought tablets were just for artists until I tried one for CAD work. How long did the hand-eye coordination take to click for you?

michaelross2mo ago

Oh man, @nancy824, I felt the exact same way. That disconnect is so real at first. Took me a solid two weeks of daily use before my brain stopped fighting it. Now I can't imagine going back to just a mouse.

piper_flores695d agoTop Commenter

It was rough for me too at first. I actually started with some simple sketching exercises, just drawing circles and straight lines over and over to get my muscles used to looking up at the screen instead of down at my hand. What really made it click for me was forcing myself to use it for everything, even just web browsing or clicking around in menus, for about a week straight. After that my brain stopped fighting it so much and now I can't go back to a mouse for any kind of detailed work either. Key for me was just committing to it 100% and not switching back and forth.