In the last week we’ve developed something very cool: We have made a protoype of a new Android app that allows you to use your android devices to draw in GIMP on your desktop PC.

My co-admin redforce is much more into all kind of programming than me, so it was actually him who has made the app.

He first developed the X.org input driver that is used for the desktop PC (running Linux in this case, which has a X display server running) to receive the touch events of your Android.

that is used for the desktop PC (running Linux in this case, which has a X display server running) to receive the touch events of your Android. Then he made a native Android 4.0 app which acts as the input device for the PC. Pressure sensitivity of the tablet (if supported, for instance on the Galaxy Note 10.1 with stylus pen) is transmitted to the PC too.

This is pretty much working really smooth and without any delay as you can see in our Video demo on Youtube. The neat thing is that GIMP can handle pressure input and that the paint dynamics work just awesome with it. But basically you can use it with any application on your PC, not just GIMP!

Everything works over WiFi, so no cable connections are required. You could lay your hand on the tablet or set it to a mode where only stylus pen inputs are accepted (so the hand movements does not interrupt your pen drawing!). You can disable this feature to work with your finger however, if you don’t have a pen on your device,

This new app is called “XorgTablet”, is not available in the Play store, but you can test it by downloading it on Github where the project is hosted (see links below). Also keep in mind that you need a Linux with X server to install the driver. It should work with any Android device, however the best use is much likely be done with a tablet and pen! We tested it with the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 and with the Samsung Galaxy S2.

You can also work on the app if you want, we made it all open source.