Stepping Stone Software LLC today is pleased to announce a major update to its popular “Pen & Ink: A Watercolor Notebook” iPad app which is used by professional artists and hobbyists to create and manage watercolor paintings and drawings. With the update, users will have 20 additional brushes, each one of which creates its own unique brushstroke and texture, resembling the look of pigment on wet paper.
“Pen & Ink is the closest thing to real watercolor painting I have ever seen,” says Jennifer Emerson, artist and Board Member of the San Francisco Art Institute. “These brushes are easy to use and perfectly replicate the feeling I have when I am painting on paper in my studio.”
Founded by Matt Feiszli, a PhD in Mathematics, Stepping Stone Software uses its own proprietary Diffusion Engine to employ mathematics known as random processes to mimic the statistics of nature. Unlike direct simulation of pigment flow, which can be computationally expensive, this approach allows for extremely efficient algorithms that run on the iPad’s graphics hardware for a responsive, interactive user experience. Further, the diffusion models can be applied to any sort of digital ink.
“The math does not discriminate between pencil and pigment,” says Feiszli, “So, for example, we’ve been able to add pencils which diffuse like watercolor through the page. This has no physical counterpart, but produces novel textures which artists will find useful. The current collection of brushes is just the beginning of what’s possible using this engine and approach.”
Language Languages:
* English, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Russian and Spanish
Pen & Ink: A Watercolor Notebook 2.2 is Free and available worldwide exclusively through the App Store in the Productivity category.
