Leaked pictures surfaced on-line this past Friday indicating that the much anticipated release of Knobby is expected very soon.
One Scanbox user that preferred not to give his name welcomed the news: “Finally, as someone trained in patch clamp, I never liked the 3D mouse. Turning heavy knobs that move smoothly… yes, that feels different!”
The new device features a beautiful 2.8″ capacitive touchscreen for user interaction and independent and simultaneous control of all four axes of the microscope.
The same features previously available in the 3D mouse are implemented in Knobby as well: position memory, zeroing of axes and vertical alignment of the objective, different movement movement modes (coarse/fine/super-fine). These features are all available via the direct interaction with the unit’s touchscreen.
One advantage of Knobby is that it allows simultaneous movement along all axes and is extremely responsive to the knobs’ movements while still keeping a nice, smooth motion.
The 3D mouse interface will still be available. A configuration variable will allow the users to select between input from the 3D mouse or Knobby.
Scanbox users that prefer the type of interaction Knobby offers rather than working with the 3D mouse should let us know (send an email to Josh) so we know so we can estimate the number of units we need.
Scanbox 