Well I have Xara Designer Pro 9, but Photo & Graphic Designer has everything needed to create maps - I've been a user since Xara X1, XX4, XXP5, and now XDP9 (I've always had the full program).
I use to print maps, with the capability of printing up to 42 x 96 with a large format Canon printer (I still use it in my cartography process when doing hand-drawn work), but the mentioned scales in my previous post is for use in the mentioned virtual tabletop applications, so the final product is a 100 ppi JPG intended to be loaded into a map image space that users online can simultaneously view. There's no need for a print for much of what I do now, so Xara Photo & Graphic Designer is perfect for doing so.
Since you're new here, you don't know me, but I'm a professional freelance game cartographer. I create maps for both video game strategy guide publishers and the roleplaying game industry (games like Dungeons & Dragons) and have been doing this for 8 years. I have a thread I started in 2010 here on the board, called Fantasy Maps Created with Xara Xtreme to give you an idea of the work I do using Xara almost exclusively for designing my work.
Hi!
Many printing companies take EPS files in the format 10:1.
Where is problem?
You put your document to the size of 20 inches. That's 10% of the desired size.
So stroke weights, font sizes, etc. all in sizes of 10% of final size.
When then scale up to 1000% output in the print dialog - gives back 200 inches.
Do not forget. Convert lines and texts to editable shapes.
In this way, I have to design a 6m exhibition wall. Worked just fine. Ask your print shop and try yourself.
@Gameprinter - not to make a competition of it, but I have single files [TIFF/TGA] that are well above 500MB in size... but still, the point is that it's possible up to a point, but it's slower.... and I think the earlier version [xrteme pro 3 I think - the first version with multiple pages and before the new web stuff anyway] was faster then version 8 with these files; one day I may dig around and verify, but I use CS-openGL photoshop and indesign these days, much quicker [for me]
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Nothing lasts forever...
Which is why I still prefer vector. And escalating the competition I've created PSD files of a single page as a map that was well over a GB in size, with hundreds of layers, and measured 40,000 x 60,000 or more in pixel dimension.
Since I mostly do maps there is no real page-layout needs. Labels, symbols, text and borders are about the extent of the use of graphics beyond the art of the map itself, so InDesign provides no advantage in this kind of work I do. 90 to 100% of the map work I do is entirely created in Xara (sometimes I use 3D applications to create complex objects that are difficult to replicate in 2D apps). I technically have no need of Photoshop, or any image editor in doing a map. The only time I use Photoshop is to create custom texture fills or to insure PSD exports from Xara are opened and saved in the most current Photoshop PSD format - because many of my high end publisher clients are using Macs and require PSD images that are perfectly compatible (I don't trust the Xara PSD export without checking it in Photoshop before I send it to the client.)
I agree that with the emergence of "revolutionary" webdesign features(which are not the best on the market) and the addition of cheap photo plugins(whitch is incredibly complicates the work with large files), Xara has turned to ordinary "allrounder".
But for me Xara is still number 1 for the preparation of documents for the further work in PS & co. XDP has some features that are implemented more successfully and faster than other software. Any PSD files I start with XDP(Although, no. At first I compile a PSD file in Photoshop, and then open it with XDP). 60% of the work I do in Photoshop. But often XDP is not "replaceable" [for me].
I'm waiting for the end of the "crisis" age and return XDP to it intended use.
horses for courses - i paint and draw, can't do that in a vector program like you do in corel painter, or SAI even,; you can construct in the CAD way, but it's not the same and actually takes longer than freehand drawing [again for me] - still use xrara for run of the mill vector colouring and for routinely putting elements together, but that's about it these days; I have little hope of ver 11 pulling me back, since i have gone almost completely back to the raster way of doing things.. SIL
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Nothing lasts forever...
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