With a newly revealed patent, Apple can put an optical sensor built into the Apple Pencil to help capture colors and textures.
According to Neowin, this technology can help Apple Pencil add more functions than a pen for taking notes and creating art. With the ability to draw inspiration from the colors and textures of real-life objects, the device can serve as a reference tool for artists to build banks of colors and textures for use in their own projects. their project.
This feature is somewhat similar to the popular Eyedropper tool in many graphics software, allowing users to sample surrounding colors easily. As described in the patent, the Apple Pencil’s color-sensing system will be able to record the color of external objects, potentially making measurements of texture and appearance-related features. The emitter in the new Apple Pencil can be adjusted and the light spectrum can be customized based on factors like ambient light color.
The intensity of the emitter can also be adjusted in the measurements. Alternatively, an inertial measuring device can be used to measure the angle between the stylus and the surface during color sampling. The texture of the surface can be measured using light that falls on the surface.
Finally, the parameters from the measurements are transmitted wirelessly to a device such as an iPad for use in applications such as drawing software.
Currently, the above features of the Apple Pencil described in the filed patent are purely theoretical. It’s unclear if Apple plans to incorporate it into the redesigned Pencil version. Apple’s second generation of Apple Pencil was announced 4 years ago, so this could be an incentive for the company to consider bringing new updates to the product.
