The first 5mm of a freehand line are straight when using a tablet.

[PTTG]

I have a strange issue. See the attached images for a comparison.

 

In order to produce these images, I tried to draw a spiral with both the mouse and the tablet. Oddly, in both cases,  I found that the CURSOR ITSELF moved in a complete spiral. However, in every attempt except for the first, the first segment of the line did not appear on the canvas until the cursor was approximately 5mm away from the starting location.

 

This is very confusing, because the program SHOULD be seeing the mouse and the tablet as completely identical.

 

I know this issue is inside PDN or a library thereof, because other paint programs don't have this issue.

 

My question is, is this a setting or otherwise intentional, or is this a bug that needs to be reported?

 

This is 64 bit windows 10, the tablet is a Parblo Coast 10. PDN 4.0.21.

[Zagna]

Random guess, try if turning off Fluid mouse input changes anything?

[Rick Brewster]

I investigated this years ago. From what I could tell, it's a bug in the legacy Windows input system (e.g. WM_MOUSEDOWN, WM_MOUSEMOVE, WM_MOUSEUP). I reached this conclusion after reproducing it outside of Paint.NET with a WPF test app.

 

I'll be transitioning to the newer Windows input system (the "pointer" API), hopefully by end-of-year, which may eliminate this, as well as the need for the "Fluid mouse input" troubleshooting option. Windows 7 will not benefit from this, however, since it doesn't support the Pointer API.

[Leszek]

On 8/28/2018 at 5:46 PM, Rick Brewster said:

I'll be transitioning to the newer Windows input system (the "pointer" API), hopefully by end-of-year, which may eliminate this, as well as the need for the "Fluid mouse input" troubleshooting option. 

 

I'm experiencing the very same issue using HUION 1060PLUS and was wondering when this bug is going to be resolved? Note that this issue doesn't seem to occur in any other graphic software I've used.

 

Thanks

[Rick Brewster]

It'll happen when I do what I said above -- I hope. I can't actually promise this because I haven't had the chance to test out the new input APIs in Windows. But, I don't think the new brush and pen stuff I want to do can be successful with this bug. (which, btw, seems to be a bug in Windows itself, for what it's worth)

 

My current estimate is this summer. See also: https://blog.getpaint.net/2018/12/26/whats-next-for-paint-net-in-2019/ 

[toe_head2001]

On 8/28/2018 at 3:46 PM, Rick Brewster said:

... hopefully by end-of-year, which may eliminate this, as well as the need for the "Fluid mouse input" troubleshooting option. Windows 7 will not benefit from this ...

 

It ought to be pointed out that the lack of newer input APIs in Windows 7 won't matter too much, considering Microsoft will be ending support for Windows 7 around that time (a year from now). And thus, people should be upgrading to a newer Windows version in the interim.

[iamdak]

Hello,

 

I just got a surface pro 6 with pen and I wanted to continue using Paint.NET until I ran into the issue described in this post.  I know you said that you has already investigated the issue and hope for a resolution sometime soon but I thought I'd just add my conclusions to my own research.  The problem (at least the iteration I am experiencing at 1/27/19) is that windows is applying some sort of "deadzone" when first touching the screen (either with a finger or pen).  You can observe this when touching or penning(?) and slowly moving your finger/pen.  There is a consistent radius between the first touch (which will ALWAYS register a dot on PDN) and when the software begins to render the line.  The radius seems to be the same distance as the short line that first appears once you break that threshold. It appears that the deadzone is supposed to make it easier to access the "right click" menu achieved by holding down on the deadzone area for about a second.  This is consistent with the mouse deadzone of 4px that windows uses to protect against accidentally dragging when clicking files.  Unfortunately I could not find a registry entry that would allow me to reduce that radius.

 

The behavior can be observed on any application that is not created with a native ink canvas (hell it even happens on iOS).  This is where I think it may be almost trivial for PDN to fix; when I was starting up a project a while ago I originally tried to learn the PDN format to import images directly into my program. That's when I read that all its doing is creating a blank windows canvas in C# and the rest of the inner-workings is completely opaque.  I recently read that declaring a canvas as an "ink" canvas would allow the pen/touch/whatever to work correctly and not revert to whatever they would describe as the "legacy" path for touch.  Forgive me for the simplistic descriptions as my research was limited to a very high level; even if it were as simple as adding an attribute to the canvas there are almost certainly going to be additional work with supporting brushes, tilt, pressure, and whatever else the native API supports.

 

Anyway, I'm really looking forward to paint.net having native support for touch.  I just purchased the Windows 10 app in hopes that it had native support already but its otherwise great to support a product that I've been using for years since I stopped using Paint Shop Pro 3.0

 

Thanks, and I can't wait for an update on this!

-b

[Rick Brewster]

Thanks for the info  Maybe it'll be helpful, we'll see

 

I also see this behavior when using a mouse on a desktop PC, so the problem may be beyond what you describe. Or it may be in conjunction with it. We'll see ... hopefully there's a reasonable fix.

[Flywheel Kjell]

Hi 

Im using wacom Intuos. Had the same problem. Solved it by deactivating Windows ink. But i got another bug. Now When im using the pen quite often it makes a peak upwards (sometimes sideways) and moves the scene leaving a line. 

Very annoing! Actually annoying enough to consider another software. I really doesnt want to so if anyone have a solution, please share!

 

Im from sweden so please no comments on the language. Its not mine, Im just trying to use it.

[Flywheel Kjell]

Think i solved it!

Turned off fluid mouse input.

[Joost8910]

I have the same issue, but turning off fluid mouse input doesnt fix it.
Windows 10, paint.net 4.1.6, Wacom Intuos tablet

[PTTG]

Just checking in, I'm still seeing this issue regardless of the Fluid mouse input state. I'm hopeful the pointer changes fix this, I love PDN for my drawing because other than this it just works works and does what I need.

[not_oliver]

Making an account just to say this, 

 

Win10, paint.net 4.2.1, Wacom Intuos Small BT

 

disabling both windows ink in (wacom driver) and fluid mouse input (paint.net settings) fixes this issue for me, as well as not drawing random vertical lines!

[Rick Brewster]

I think I should have this fixed for 4.2.6. I'm transitioning over to using the WM_POINTER system if it's available for pen/touch input, which will 1) fix this!!!, and 2) it gets things ready for adding pressure sensitivity support. However, whether this fixes things for your tablet will depend on if its driver is supplying the right data to Windows. It'll work for something like a Surface w/ a Surface Pen, but I don't have anything like a Wacom or a Parblo and I don't know how they hook into Windows.

[Zamorano]

On 8/22/2019 at 3:37 AM, not_oliver said:

Making an account just to say this, 

 

Win10, paint.net 4.2.1, Wacom Intuos Small BT

 

disabling both windows ink in (wacom driver) and fluid mouse input (paint.net settings) fixes this issue for me, as well as not drawing random vertical lines!

 

Same here.

[Rick Brewster]

I just released a preview of 4.2.6: https://forums.getpaint.net/topic/115459-paintnet-426-alpha-build-7250/

 

 

You can install that to see if things are improved for your specific tablet, pen, or stylus.

 

(NOTE: Only Windows 8+ is affected. Windows 7 does not have the requisite WM_POINTER support.)

[MQXO]

not to be dumb but where is that fluid mouse input setting in UI settings because i cant find that anywhere

[null54]

1 hour ago, MQXO said:

not to be dumb but where is that fluid mouse input setting in UI settings because i cant find that anywhere

 

It was removed in version 4.2.6.

 

Quote

• Removed the "Fluid mouse input" setting because the use of GetMouseMovePointsEx() has been removed (it's a very buggy and broken API). This finally fixes a number of weird issues related to erratic or "scribbly" drawing.