tablet notebooks and biological illustration

[Chris Glasby]

Taxacomers,

Does anybody out there have experience using tablet notebook computers for doing
biological illustration and image analysis. From my fairly limited background
reading about these devices it seems like they could be a useful tool for
creating (and analysing) microscope digital images by :
- tracing around the outline of an image projected from a microscope camera
lucida;
- tracing an image captured from a microscope mounted digital camera and
displayed on the tablet;
- digitizing point coordinate data for morphometric studies;
- point to point measurements on captured images (provided the tablet can be
calibrated).

Are there any recommendations on hardware or software? The Toshiba Portege 3500
seems to be some reviewers choice (among those with a keyboard), but I am unsure
if existing software developed for more traditional tablet digitizers will work
with the Windows XP equipped Portege.


Cheers,
Chris



Dr Chris Glasby
Curator of Worms
Natural Sciences
Museum & Art Gallery of the Northern Territory
GPO Box 4646
Darwin NT 0801
AUSTRALIA

Email: chris.glasby at nt.gov.au
Ph: +61-8-8999 8108
Fax: +61-8-8999 8289
http://www.nt.gov.au/dam/magnt/