"Sketchy" look for vector drawings

Is there a tool in Xara that can make CAD generated drawings look hand-drawn?

I do hand drawn stuff [:D] but.... what exactly do you mean? - are you talking making a vector picture look like a pencil sketch for example, which can be done, but it will almost certainly involve rasterisation.. or something else?

In XDP9X, you can create a random brush with the Freehand and Brush Tool and apply that line to vector objects with a line width.

Acorn

Thanks. I use Revit, which is a CAD package for architecture. It does great renderings, but sometimes clients like the "hand drawn" sketchy look. I thought perhaps I could output a jpeg and process it in Xara (I have XDP9X) to give that effect or similar.

to save time if you can post up an example I'll see what might be done...

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Originally Posted by narlee

Thanks. I use Revit, which is a CAD package for architecture. It does great renderings, but sometimes clients like the "hand drawn" sketchy look. I thought perhaps I could output a jpeg and process it in Xara (I have XDP9X) to give that effect or similar.

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You could always export the JPG and process it in FotoSketcher:

http://www.fosshub.com/FotoSketcher.html

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Using Xara Photo&Graphic Designer 9, under Utilities, there is a Bitmap Tracer function with many variables you can toy with.
The vector eye already had some airbrush and hand drawn iris and eyelash detail. Not sure if this is what you mean. It gives it a paint-by-numbers effect.

This is what I envisioned the OP wants. Two clicks in FotoSketcher. 30 seconds from load to posting. Time is money.

Mike

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probably - can do that in xara with plugins, but not nec any quicker...

I can think of a couple of ways you could give a jpeg a pencil drawing look. There is the pencil effect in the new effects that come with Xara. There are also some good 3rd party plugin effects that can be used with the 32bit version of DPX9 Chalkaholic by little ink pot is free and there are some commercial (paid for) plug ins that are also very good for this Alien Skin snap art works well ( at least version 3 does I've not upgraded to 4), and there is Filter Forge, a very good filter for giving a photo a hand drawn look Sketch My Pic Up can be had from their library. You need to purchase a version of FF but then you get access to over 10,000 filters and effects from the library.

Little Ink Pot do plugins to give a hand drawn effect which I have used and work extremely well. Have a look at the site and see what you think but word of warning they let the plugins lapse and did not work with Design Pro 5 onwards. That was quite a few years ago so don't know whither they will work or not not with your version. Can I say that one of the old members here who was an architect made excellent use of these plugins in his drawing. Do a search for his work on this site through google as the search facilities here in TG doesn't work that well, his name was McIntosh I think (maybe someone else might correct me if I have got this wrong). Site address is here: http://www.littleinkpot.co.uk/index.htm

Sorry Frances missed your bit.

Thanks for that link Mike to FotoSketcher, it's just what I wanted :D Here's the plastic sphere I've drawn and the same one I altered in sketcher, nice effect, I'll play around with it some more.

Cheers Stygg.