XaraXtreme 4 - lack of vector anti-aliasing levels - HELP!

[kaputnik]

can you adjust your way of working and use layers instead? - okay I realise that may not be practical - but other than go back to 3.2 I don't know what else to suggest sorry

I already use layers; unfortunately that doesn't offer me a way to get round this that I can see.

And turning off the fill wont help either when there's a complicated arrangement of objects sitting above the bitmap and you just want to momentarily see "through" them to the bitmap to check a point of reference.

[handrawn]

I don't know what you are trying to achieve of course so..

why do you need to have the shapes there in outline when you trace the bitmap underneath? -
how are you tracing - which tool?
is this done on the same level or separate levels?
what is the end result?

[handrawn]

what you might be able to do is put bitmaps on one layer - shapes on layer above - duplicate shapes layer and remove fill - hide the shapes layer that has the fill - you have the bitmaps visible and the shape outlines visible - and the fills are still there in the third layer hidden

you can then trace on a fourth layer and move this when done to the layer with the fills if this is what you want

does this make sense - it may not be what you need of course....

[steve.ledger]

How would you work with layers to overcome this restriction Steve?

I certainly hadn't taken into account the effect XX4's new method affects people wanting to view wireframe vector objects on top bitmap objects.
I can certainly appreciate the problems this would cause.
As I work either w/f or h/q (1 or 5) I'd not actually even given much though to the reduction of steps between 3.2 and 4

edit: Ah, you'd already explained while I was posting

[kaputnik]

I don't know what you are trying to achieve of course so..

why do you need to have the shapes there in outline when you trace the bitmap underneath? -
how are you tracing - which tool?
is this done on the same level or separate levels?
what is the end result?

I'm not just tracing the outline of the bitmap, I'm tracing interior details. I'm using the shape editor tool and I'm tracing through many layers of vector objects also, with complex fills and/or transparencies, or the fills and transparencies applied to grouped objects.

What 3.2 allows you to do is to have some bitmaps in a background layer and have layers above that with your vector drawing. Instead of turning off all those vector layers, or setting all the fills above it to transparent, you can just go to the 2nd-lowest view quality setting and instantly everything is in wireframe, but you can still see the bitmap. You then have your visual reference points from both the wireframe and the bitmap of where you want to trace. I can make some screencaps to illustrate this if you'd like.

[handrawn]

Best I could come up with really - as the third layer [shapes no fill] is a dummy layer it would not matter if shapes without outlines were given them so that in effect you have a psuedo wireframe?

I have not tried this and I use wireframe rarely so it just a possibility to kick around - I may be seeing this incorrectly

The second layer with the fills could be toggled on and off for visibility as required

Layer gallery has a move function to move the contents of one layer to another which pastes in place....

All rather depends on what the object is....

[handrawn]

ok just seen your last post - looks a bit complicated - if we had nested layers.... but we don't

[kaputnik]

I'm trying (badly) to articulate why I rely on the feature so heavily; I'm not just trying to trace outlines of objects, I'm also trying to mimic fills and gradients.

I mainly do profile drawings of aircraft and rely on scans or internet-sourced drawings as a starting point. However, I like to keep things accurate, by pasting bits of photographs and whatnot in there, then mentally trying to work out where an object might sit, and how it might look in profile. For this I'm constantly having to refer back and forward between bitmaps, and points of reference in the vector drawing im recreating.

I appreciate you taking the time to suggest a workaround, unfortunately I think you'll agree that it would just get too cumbersome when there's 100s-1000s of vector objects on the page.

http://www.magnificentoctopus.com/xara/xx4example1.jpg

http://www.magnificentoctopus.com/xara/xx4example2.jpg

[RTK]

How about bringing in the vector object, resizing it to the size of your will be working at (resized to match the bitmap underneath). E.g.

Layer 1 - bitmap.

Layer 2 - vector.

Turn down the view quality so you get the wireframe of the vector - create a bitmap copy of it, with alpha, and replace it with the vector?

You now have:

Layer 1 - bitmap.

Layer 2 - bitmap "wire frame" of your vector (the bonus is that you can alternate the colour so you can see it clearly).

Layer 3 - your tracing layer.

It adds another step, but the step only takes a minute, no?

Then again, maybe I have misunderstood the issue, and a visual is needed?

Love these posts - there's "always one more use" that nobody thought of.

I'm sure there are other solutions also - people might be struggling with understanding your workflow.

Welcome to TG, Kaputnik.

Risto

[RTK]

Slow at posting (cooking ribs...). We cross-posted a bit...

Depending on the detail your will be working at - wouldn't my "solution" work if you make the work space/bitmap really big-ish?

Risto