Making curve with Smooth join

[csehz]

So maybe the question becomes - does anyone use the Smooth Joins and for what? Apart of the small adjustments

[Big Frank]

i know gary burton uses them and i was impressed with the fluidity that he used
i think it must come with experience (lots of)
its a feature i have always stayed away from

[mwenz]

Most often I draw by clicking points around the object using the Shape Tool and then move the line into its appropriate curved shape. Depending upon the curves, I will convert the node(s) to smooth instead of cusp by double-clicking on the ones I desire to change. Smooth joins are just that, smooth. If I want/need to maintain the smoothest curve, it saves moving both handles if I change the curve by using the smooth node type.

The Pen Tool defaults to a smooth join as long as one is clicking and dragging. To make a cusp node using the Pen Tool, one just clicks, moves the mouse (without holding the left mouse button down) and click at another spot, then if a smooth node is needed after clicking the new place, keep the left mouse button down and drag.

I use both methods/tools depending on what I am drawing.

Mike

[gingerbeardman]

My method is the same as Mike's.

[csehz]

Thanks the feedbacks, so the practice seems that typically start rather with Make line & Cusp join around the object, after depending on the curve, double clicking the node it becomes Smooth join to make it smoother

[JET]

This question and the responses it has so far generated goes to the heart of this program's tragic flaw: It's debilitatingly sub-standard--and foolishly de-emphasized--Pen Tool.

Designer Pro's helps says just this about the Pen Tool:

"Although it is not in the Drawing Tools toolbar, you can also use the Pen Tool to create precise shapes. It has limited functionality and works like the line tool of other drawing programs."

[Works like the line tool in other drawing programs!? Really? Which line tool in which drawing program?]

In the current version, the Pen Tool has even been removed from the default interface.

If Xara considers its Pen Tool to be so sub-standard (which it is), and is evidently so ashamed of it, then why provide it? Either FIX IT or remove it.

But no, Xara evidently thinks its "very powerful tool", the Shape Editor, represents something of a "breakthrough" far superior to the now practically universal basic pen tool interface for Bezier drawing programs (click for a corner joint, drag for a curve joint, invoke momentary modifiers for cusps and to adjust curve handles as you proceed and resume where you left off when momentary modifiers are released):

"The Shape Editor Tool is best for drawing precise curves and lines. It is also the main tool to edit lines and shapes."

So someone needs to step up and demonstrate how using Designer Pro's Shape Editor Tool is more efficient, more intuitive, less tedious for drawing Csehz's fish outline than doing so with a long-established mainstream Bezier pen interface.

If you follow the norm of placing points (what Xara calls Point Handles) at the horizontal and vertical extrema of curves, and not going too crazy with long curve handles, the fish outline should be drawn with about 11 smooth joins. So let's do that. For comparison, start at the top of the fish's head, proceed clockwise and constrain all curve handles to vertical/horizontal.

Using the Pen Tool, I can do that and only go back to adjust about four curve handles. Mind you, that's with Xara's anemically under-developed Pen Tool. I can do it more efficiently with a properly fleshed-out pen tool in most any other drawing program (Illustrator, Draw, Canvas, Inkscape). I can do it in one pass without revisiting any handles in Serif DrawPlus, which actually does improve upon the near universal Bezier drawing norm by providing a momentary shortcut by which to drag the outgoing control handle length of a smooth node independently of the incoming.

JET

[mwenz]

This question and the responses it has so far generated goes to the heart of this program's tragic flaw: It's debilitatingly sub-standard...

Using the Pen Tool, I can do that and only go back to adjust about four curve handles. Mind you, that's with Xara's anemically under-developed Pen Tool...

And I can redraw the entire fish while drinking a sub-standard, luke-warm cup of coffee using Xara's sub-standard drawing tool, the Shape Editor. Don't know if I can do it any faster regardless of whether I am using DP or FH. Certainly not Illustrator. InkScape runs so slow (in comparison) on this laptop that with the exception of using it for SVG (or checking/fixing Illy's SVG) that I don't use it.

I figure I drank that luke-warm cup of coffee in 6 minutes.

Now, does that mean I do not want Xara to improve the Pen and other drawing tools? Oh heck no. But I would rather have Xara fix/improve/enhance many other vector things first.

Mike

[tonylondon]

Now, does that mean I do not want Xara to improve the Pen and other drawing tools? Oh heck no. But I would rather have Xara fix/improve/enhance many other vector things first.

Mike

Agreed. I also think the simplicity of Xara's drawing tool is a benefit.

[JET]

...I am searching the logic rather which decrease that time...

For practical purposes in casual drawing, the "logic" is quite flexible. Just avoid too many or too few points, and make them the appropriate join type. Of course, you want points of tangency to actually be tangent; the handles of corner joins between two straight segments to be fully retracted, and handles to be horizontal or vertical, where the desired shape is supposed to be horizontal/vertical. Otherwise place points at positions/angles with which you are comfortable.

That mostly translates to trying to achieve as few points as necessary on smooth curves. Even if you only use smooth joins, using too many of them imposes ugly bumps or dips in the smooth curves you are trying to achieve. Beginners often try to "correct" inaccurate curves by adding more frequent points along what they really want to be continuous curves. That's usually self-defeating. Bezier math is all about generating smooth curves, so you want to let it do its thing without needlessly constraing it to expressly defined positions.

But minimizing curve points can also be taken too far when accuracy is required. Do this: Set some type in a variety of quality fonts which contain PostScript Type 1 outlines, not TrueType outlines (cubic Bezier curves, not quadratic Bezier curves). Note that the S characters usually have smooth join points along the middle of the reverse curve in the character. Strictly speaking, that's not necessary; you can easily achieve an ess curve with one cubic Bezier segment. But for the purpose of rendering control at various output resolutions, the thickness of that part of the S is important to the appearance of the character, so the type designer wants it expressly defined; "nailed down", not interpolated by the curve math.

The generally accepted rule-of-thumb is that curve handles should in most cases extend no more than approximately one third of the segment length. Again, that's a very liberally-interpreted "rule."

Studying the paths of quality typefaces is one of the best ways to learn the "logic" of optimal path drawing. The "norm" of placing anchors at the vertical/horizontal extrema of curves which I mentioned in my previous post is also an allusion to type design. Doing so actually helps simplify the curve-generating math, and controls accuracy of hinting for rendering at various resolutions. (Vector drawing is all about resolution independence--rendering a given shape accurately at variable resolutions.) Again, you would not require yourself to strictly adhere to that convention for most illustration purposes, but it is still instructive to developing an intuition for optimized paths.

...does anyone use the Smooth Joins and for what?

By all means, yes, they are needed. Smooth joins are just as important as corners. You use them wherever the joins of two segments are supposed to be tangent. All Bezier drawing programs actually need three kinds of joins:

Corner: Beween two straight segments, two non-tangent curved segments (so called "cusp"), or between a non-tanget straight segment and curve segment.

Smooth: Between two tangent curved segments.

Tangent: Between a straight segment and a curved segment.

Illustrator and most other drawing programs only offer the first two. FreeHand and its predecessor, Fontographer, provides the third. It is a seriously unfortunate omission in almost all drawing programs.

But your asking this question--minimizing the importance of smooth joins--together with most of the responses in this thread, stems from the substandard awkwardness of the primary path drawing tool in Xara Designer.

The "click, click, click, then go back and bend" method of drawing is a good thing, and all drawing programs should provide for it. In the early days, it was popularly referred to (originally, I think, by Olav Martin Kvern in his Real World FreeHand books) as the "bendomatic" method. It is an excellent simplified and intuitive way to introduce Bezier drawing newcomers to path drawing. And it's not just that; it can also impart a stylistic consistency that I still often use. So it's great that Designer Pro provides for it. (Illustrator, by the way, doesn't.)

But it is not a suitable substitute for the more usual methods. And the root problem is, all the other methods are very poorly implemented in Xara Designer Pro. This is evidenced right here in this very thread by the implication that having to go back and bend straight segments, or adjust handles, or convert points is acceptable. It isn't. And it won't be to the many potential new Designer Pro users who are already skilled in the mainstream norm, from years of drawing in all of the mainstream programs far more prevalent than Designer Pro.

Since the 80s, it's been my practice to acquire and compare just about every affordable mainstream drawing program out there. I have yet to see any implementation of the primary drawing tool as elegant as that of FreeHand. FreeHand provides for the "bendomatic" method, the mainstream "click or drag" method, the inclusion of tangent points, momentary previous-segment editing including extraction of individual retracted handles with resume.

It does all this with one Pen Tool, without having to make a hard switch to an awkward Illustrator-esque "convert point" tool, and without having to put the primary tool in different "modes."

Again, this matter is the most critical and most tragic issue with Xara Designer Pro's otherwise generally elegant interface. It's a real deal-breaker that seriously needs addressing. It should be top priority.

JET

[JET]

And I can redraw the entire fish while drinking a sub-standard, luke-warm cup of coffee using Xara's sub-standard drawing tool, the Shape Editor. Don't know if I can do it any faster regardless of whether I am using DP or FH. Certainly not Illustrator. InkScape runs so slow (in comparison) on this laptop that with the exception of using it for SVG (or checking/fixing Illy's SVG) that I don't use it.

But are you interested in an objective and substantive discussion of the subject at hand, or just in defense of the current state of your pet program? If the latter, I have no response for you because I'm not interested in that in the context of what we're presently talking about. I couldn't care less about program vendor favoritism. If the former...

And I can redraw the entire fish...[with]...the Shape Editor..

Okay. In how many moves? How many adjustments? I think the suggested exercise is legitimate for the purpose of comparison.

Don't know if I can do it any faster regardless of whether I am using DP or FH. Certainly not Illustrator. InkScape runs so slow...or checking/fixing Illy's SVG...

I can do it faster in just about anything, certainly including FreeHand, Illustrator and InkScape (and Draw and Canvas and DrawPlus). Program performance, SVG problems, etc., etc., is completely superfluous to the comparison between Bezier drawing interfaces and is just poisoning the well. Believe me, I can poison any of the same wells with a long list of complaints, but that's not the point of discussion.

I'm trying to answer the original post and engage a serious discussion of Designer Pro's primary Bezier drawing tool. In an illustration program wherein you're drawing literally thousands of paths in one drawing, that's central. That's a deal breaker.



For example: In the above illustration, Xara Xtreme's performance in rendering the practically countless instances of feathered transparency would knock Illustrator outside even practicality for the same methodology. But that's another discussion. I still could have done it in far less time and with much less tedium if Xtreme had had a decent Pen Tool. And it's precisely the lack of same which has prevented my chosing it for many other projects since.

JET