Digital Pen - how it works

The digital pen is the tool that, together with the Anoto patterned paper, enables you to store and transmit basically anything you write or draw to anywhere in the world.

The main parts of the digital pen are a digital camera, an advanced image-processing unit and a Bluetooth radio transceiver. It also contains an ink cartridge so that you can actually see what you have written or drawn. The digital pen does not have any buttons or display. It looks and feels like an ordinary ballpoint pen and you use it in the same way. You activate the pen by simply removing the cap and deactivate it by replacing the cap again. It couldn't be easier.

The Camera

The dots of the Anoto pattern are illuminated by infrared light, making them visible for the digital camera. Digital snapshots, at a rate of 100 per second, are taken of the pattern. (The ink from the pen is not visible to the camera. Therefore the pattern is not degraded by your writing.)

The image processor

Manage team projects with the ability to view shared documents, timelines and assignments while tracking tasks that are active, completed and overdue.

The memory

All the data from the image processor is packaged and loaded into the pen memory, which can store several fully written pages.

The Bluetooth transceiver

The information is transmitted by the Bluetooth transceiver, either directly to your computer, or forwarded via a relay device (e.g. mobile phone, personal computer or handheld device) to the Anoto Look-up Service. From here some information will be forwarded for further processing elsewhere.

Ink cartridge and force sensor

The pen holds an ordinary ink cartridge to make visible all that you have written or drawn. A force-sensing resistor measures the stylus tip force.