Which is better: a digitizing pen or a cursor?

Pen vs. Cursor. “I was at a trade show and I saw another estimating package that uses a pencil shaped pointer, and it looked real convenient to use. Can I use that with InSite SiteWork?”

The answer is No, and for good reason. When we started evaluating the different pointing devices for incorporation into InSite SiteWork, we looked at all of the pointing devices available, including 16 button cursors, 4 button cursors, and pen type pointers. The two important issues which affected our decision were accuracy and convenience.

Accuracy: Since a pen requires you to “eyeball” the location of the pen from two directions to get an accurate location, and since the angle that the pen is held is important, we suspected that the cursor was going to be more accurate. Our testing has shown the pen to have twice the variability of the cursor. We suspect it is the inductive reader’s height (see illustration) above the pen tip, combined with the large diameter of the tip that leads to the inaccuracy.

Convenience: The programs that use a pen require numerical input and menu choices to be accomplished by digitizing a menu or using the computer’s keyboard. This requires the estimators to take their eyes off of the plan when making menu selections or elevation inputs. This doesn't seem like a big deal when entering the simple drawing used for most demonstrations, but using a pen on a complex job with difficult to read plans will decrease the efficiency of take-off.

While it would have been far easier to write a program using a pen for input, the benefits to the estimator made 16 button cursor support obvious.