Vector drawing package advice please.

[Shep]

Just a quick question about vector drawing packages, a fair bit of my drawing up of logo's and designs that need to be engraved involves scann9ing in rough artwork then digitising/vectorising the image using pen tools. The finished path is then processed in different ways for different engraving processes.

I currently use a really old version of Corel Draw 8, this works but I find the pen tool to be a little restrictive (could be down to my knowledge of Coreldraw though) I have another older vector editing programme that has a much better curve creator than CD8 however it's on such an old windows PC that very few modern printers/scanners support it.

SOoooo..... what i'm looking for is possibly upgrading my drawing kit to Adobe Illustrator and perhaps treating myself to a nice Apple machine to run it all on.

But, the question is, has illustrator's vector pen tool got enough extra features over CD8 to warrant the extra cost??

Opinions please

 

[Ste]

Can't really give you a comparison as I haven't used CD8. All I can say is that the pen tool in Illustrator is probably it's most powerful tool. Why don't you download a 30 day trial of CS5 from Adobe a give it a spin.

What are the restrictions in CD8?

Steve

 

[Shep]

Can't really give you a comparison as I haven't used CD8. All I can say is that the pen tool in Illustrator is probably it's most powerful tool. Why don't you download a 30 day trial of CS5 from Adobe a give it a spin.

What are the restrictions in CD8?

Steve

I don't find the curve creation tools to be brilliant, my usage is dead simple, I scan a logo crest artwork etc, then trace an outline or sometimes a toolpath around all the details. it's this tracing that gives me issues.

My old program, Inspire, allowed me to draw by clicking to add a point, click again at the end of the curve (or at least at the end of a portion of the curve) then, holding the left click, move the mouse to adjust the curve, release the left click and the curve freezes. Perhaps the next click will be at the end of a straight line following the curve, this can be made without altering the previous curve, this is a problem on CD8 (or perhaps i've configured it wrong) CD8 seems to be stuck with tangent arms, alter one, you alter the previous?

I noticed that illustrator allows the nodes to be altered in their properties to allow the tangent arms to work separately, therefor allowing more control/speed in drawing, I'm hoping that that will allow more intuative drawing.

The CD8/pc combo i've been using is yonks old and any instructions/support ended many years ago. Up untill now, drawing up logos using CD8 was a once a week issue, but changes in our work has now meant i'm using it 20hrs a week now, and I need to work alongside other producers of artwork and they seem mostly AI/mac based, i was kind of hoping to bring myself/my business up a notch or two, thereby appearing a little more professional to the 'bluechips' that are increasingly becoming our main customers.

Paul

 

[richie]

Sounds like simple use, tried Flash? Vector program not what you need full blown but should do what you want.

 

[Ste]

Paul

AI excellent for tracing (Live Trace is a great addition as well), you can adjust segments, anchor points etc.. Far too many features to list here.

Looks like its exactly what you need for your workflow and business requirements.

As I say, give it a trial on either Windows or Mac.
Let me know if you need any info.


Steve

 

[Shep]

Sounds like simple use, tried Flash? Vector program not what you need full blown but should do what you want.

Needs to be simple for me

Saying that, not all of my workload is that simple and the positive way this side of the workload is progressing I don't want to re-start with something that won't be capable in the future.

Having used various low profile drawing packages in the past, very few seem to offer good support, whereas if I choose AI, support is just a click away or even a quick chat with other users who seem plenitful due to it being concidered the industry benchmark.

Paul

AI excellent for tracing (Live Trace is a great addition as well), you can adjust segments, anchor points etc.. Far too many features to list here.

Looks like its exactly what you need for your workflow and business requirements.

As I say, give it a trial on either Windows or Mac.
Let me know if you need any info.


Steve

I do need to try it on a Mac, 'cos I have a hankering to move all my artwork production to a more modern system and I like the Apple products I use now.



Last time I changed my artwork production was in the late '80's, things have certainly moved on since then, much cheaper now, then i paid £5k for the computer, digitising tablet and software then, and I was one of the few users at that time, so any support was via the phone from Israel.

All was out of date in three years and became available to everybody at a fraction of the cost

I think I could get myself a reasonable bit of kit and software for less that £2k now, times have changed.

Cheers

Shep

 

[Rob Farmer]

Try Serif Drawplus. They have a try before you buy package http://www.serif.com/drawplus/dpx5.asp?MC=SERPPCDP1&gclid=CK6C8dfP0asCFQULfAodADC7XA

Pretty good support as well. They're based in Nottingham.

 

[Dansin]

I've been using CorelDraw since it was on version 3 back in the early 90's. I'm now running Ubuntu and use Inkscape which is free. Available for Mac/Linux/Windows here. It's virtually identical to later versions of Corel and I found it really easy to change over.