Palm Rejection does not work

Hi there

I’ve been trying out the art overlay and have great difficulty with it:
I have been expirementing with the art over lay in dranwing and painting mode. I understand from the guide and posts on the forum here that painting mode is more efficient at the moment in the No overlay mode, so I’ll skip that issue for now.

Since one of the great features was being able to draw with pencil on paper with the art overlay I was very excited to test it out.
The pressure sensitivy is awesome but there’s a great obsticle - Palm rejection simply does not work properly.
the sensel recognize the side of my hand as a main pressure point, and as a result every line I make is at the same spot. The only way I’m able to make it differentiate between the tip of the pencil and my palm is to set the tip first and then rest my hand. I have to do this every time I lift my pencil up and want to make a new stroke.
as you can imagine, this is very counter-intuitive and does not allow the original purpose, especially when the working area is so small…

Is there anything I can do to make the palm rejection work? I removed every accesory from my hand as recommended, but really nothing works…

Another issue with the art overlay (maybe I should make a separate topic for that?) is the lines in the windows input are very squiggly (both in pen and brush mode). I tested this with my hand not touching the sensel, so this does not have to do with palm rejection, I think it may have to with the softness of the overlay material, but not sure…

has anyone encountered these problems?

1 Like

Thank you for contacting us and for your feedback. We are continuing to work on our palm rejection algorithms at Sensel and will update the Morph firmware and software going forward. The method you described of putting your pen down first is the best method to ensure palm rejection but we appreciate that it is not natural. You can decrease the chance of an accidental touch by turning off paper mode and increasing the Click Activation for the Pen Mode in the Sensel App. This does require a slightly harder press to activate the pen, but will remove more accidental inputs. It may also help to remove the Art Overlay and place it on the Morph again, which will recalibrate the Morph for the Art Overlay.

Thank you for your patience and I hope this advise helps.

I have experienced the same issues as you’ve described too @Noa_K. Sadly, the response I received was pretty much the same, in that they are continuing to work on the palm rejection.

Unfortunately, the whole Morph experience has left a real bad taste in my mouth. I foolishly had this grand expectation that I was going to be able to replace my other drawing devices with this new game changing device when I first saw promo videos for the Morph. The promos made it seem as though most of these well known issues of palm rejection and pressure sensitivity were taken care of and that it was going to revolutionize the way digital and traditional art gets created but I should have expected for these major hiccups from a brand new device such as the Morph.

As it stands right now, the Morph is literally unusable for any kind of respectable drawing done in a timely manner. Especially when it comes to drawing on paper atop of the Morph.
I hope things can get fixed soon as I’ve even had thoughts of just getting my money back, :confused:

Hello! Just jumping in to confirm that this is exactly the case for me also. At this point, I cannot make any drawing with the morph without quitting in the middle of it due to its counter-intuitive/uncomfortable drawing experience (><) and going back to my trusty tablet. Same issues. I really do want it to work, so I keep on going back and trying again, adjusting my painting styles…

I do want to say that while palm rejection failure is bothering me, squiggly lines are bothering me more. I paint both traditionally and digitally, but then the pen tip wavers this much, it’s like adding on a handicap to yourself that makes you shake constantly while painting. So for now, the art overlay is useless for me as well.

That said, I do still have high hopes for the morph itself, although I bought in to the idea also for the fact that maybe this device will revolutionize digital art (it seemed to have been advertised as that), but I do understand they are still starting up and comparing them to well established drawing tablets is a bit unfair. I’m just kind of quietly waiting in the corner until it gets better.

1 Like

Hi Alex,
Thank you for your kind reply.

I really hope you manage to solve the palm rejection issue as it’s one of the main features needed for an artist to work effectively.

I have tried increasing Click activation as you suggested and it won’t do for a couple of reasons:

  1. to acheive the feel I still use a pencil I used my wacom pen (otherwise I would have painted straight on the overlay). however, this worried me with highr click activation threshhold I will damage the art overlay itself, being made from soft silicone.
  2. squiggly lines are still present, and ther actually seems to be slight disproportion from the “real-life” to digital input. I would appreciate if you can address this matter as I see I’m not the only one encountering this problem.
  3. Higher click activation mode makes it near impossible to use software features such as selecting tool, color picking, layer choice ect. this is also an issue while painting in no-overlay mode. It would be great if there was some keyboard shortcut to allow switching from painting to mouse mode as well, though I’m not sure if you see a plug-in for photoshop in the future planning of for sensel.

I understand your trying to solve things as problems arise and looking forward to the improvements you make.
it would be great if there would be a thread by your team listing the issues you are aware of and their status. I think it will help us artist diffuse much of the frustration when stumbling upon those problems at first :slight_smile:

many thanks!

Noa

I’m on GNU/Linux, using GIMP, and I’ve found that palm rejection seems to only work when the Art overlay is in pencil mode. With a palm resting on the drawing area, the pointer pops to where the palm is resting until I put the back of my paintbrush down, at which point the cursor/pointer jumps to where the paintbrush back is touching. Then, with enough pressure, paint is put down.

Hello, currently, palm rejection only works with the pen/stylus mode. You can find more information about the modes at http://guide.sensel.com/morph/#modes.

I’m writing to say that the latest update (or maybe a slightly older one) has really improved palm rejection.

In Stylus Mode, I use my Morph with a stylus that came with an Intuos 3 Wacom tablet.

I had been having trouble when lifting the stylus from the Morph. When the stylus was no longer touching the Morph, the Morph would think my palm is the stylus.

But now that seems to be fixed. When I lift the stylus from the Morph, the Morph doesn’t think my palm is the stylus even when I tried to fool it by moving my palm around on the Morph.

You are absolutely correct I also regret buying this after seeing their promo video and thought this can be it. This can solve all of my problems that I was facing with my basic devices. To be honest yes I did find some help from this but what I though and what I experienced is way too far. They should not put just advertisements and make people feel like they can solve their problems.

1 Like

Hey @mariah, thanks so much for your feedback. We actually stopped selling the Art Overlay because it didn’t live up to our customer standards. In addition, we haven’t advertised the Morph as a drawing device since the Kickstarter campaign, when we had higher hopes for this feature. I’ll see what additional things we can do to make this clear!

We still think the ability to draw on the bare Morph or with the Innovator’s Overlay is a differentiating feature from other devices, but always caution that it does not replace a dedicated tool like the Wacom tablet.