2007-10-28

GIMP and Inkscape Stylus Tracking Problem

If you use a Wacom Graphire tablet and drawing tools GIMP 2.4 or Inkscape 0.45.1 on Windows Vista, you may find the cursor unresponsive; for instance, it would halt and jump to a new location after a some seconds of use. The problem seems to be caused by the underlying GTK library not processing all the events from the tablet device. Drawing tools that use different libraries, such as Paint.Net don't have this problem.

A work-around is to avoid using devices via the WinTab interface. Just add the following option to the Windows shortcut for the GIMP and Inkscape: --no-wintab.

There's some drawbacks of this work-around:

  • You can't use the pressure sensor on the Wacom stylus to change the drawing cursor in the GIMP.
  • You can't use the eraser on the rear of the Wacom stylus as another drawing tool.

2008-05-06: Another bug to track is Wacom Bamboo Doesn't Function with GTK apps in Win32.

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7 comments:

  1. Anonymous10 December 2007 at 13:56

    Thanks, this seems to have worked.

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  2. Anonymous21 December 2007 at 02:33

    It's not just Vista. There are many reports of this happening on XP as well.

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  3. Anonymous21 May 2008 at 13:47

    Thanks for the workaround, but losing pressure sensitivity was bad for me. However you posted a link to the bug report "Wacom Bamboo Doesn't Function with GTK apps in Win32" and in there I found instructions for patching the GDK DLL (for both GIMP and Inkscape). It worked for me! I no longer have freezes and I still have pressure sensitivity. Great..! If you haven't tried the patching do try it (or email me at skygazing at gmail dot com). In the bug report Tor Lillqvist says the fix will be introduced in GTK+ 2.12.10. Thanks! :)

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  4. Anonymous21 May 2008 at 14:07

    Thanks for the good news, Voonyi! I have to try it as soon as I get home!

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  5. Anonymous25 May 2008 at 17:21

    Finally tried the fix and it works!

    Note that you have to install GIMP 2.4.5 otherwise libgdk-win32-2.0-0.dll is not the size mentioned in the bug report.

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  6. Anonymous19 June 2008 at 20:11

    Hi Kam-Hung,

    Are you using GIMP 2.4.6? If the libgdk-win32-2.0-0.dll file is of version 2.12.9, I think the offset is at 39180 instead. Hope this works for you : ) voon (skygazing at gmail dot com)

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  7. Anonymous20 June 2008 at 08:48

    Hi Voon Yi,

    Thanks for the tip. I haven't upgraded GIMP yet because I've been busy at work. I'll give it a go when I have a chance.

    ReplyDelete

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