Digitizer Technology

Three popular types of digitizer technologies are in use today: resistive, electrostatic, and electromagnetic. The following sections describe these different technologies.

Resistive Digitizers

The least expensive type of digitizer is resistive. Resistive digitizers can have one or two layers. A single-layer resistive digitizer is made with a transparent film of known, predictable resistance (hence the name). Voltages can be applied at the four corners of the film. Because the film introduces even resistance across its surface, applying a voltage on one edge of the film creates a gradient of voltage across the entire film. Figure 2-3 shows how applying voltage at the corners can introduce such a gradient. When a single-layer ...

Get Building Tablet PC Applications now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.