Speed: Xara vs. CorelDraw

[timo.heil]

...why Draw zooms in a bit faster into an object with e.g. a shadow:

CorelDraw seems to create an initial bitmap (with a very high resolution). When you zoom in, the bitmap stays the same. Draw needs very long to create that shadow-bitmap. When you change the shadow transparency in Draw, it creates a new bitmap (and once again this takes quite a long time).

On the other hand, Xara seems to render a new shadow-bitmap (it's resolution depending on the zoom factor) whenever you zoom into the object.
Xara obviously renders shadow-bitmaps much faster than Draw: changing shadow transparency can be done (almost) in realtime (depending on how fast your PC is).

Am I right?

[gwpriester]

Timo

Here is something to show Mr. Know-it-all at your company Blends comparrison

I prepared the chrome pretzel image when I was creating the Xara X preview page. I used the maximum number of blend steps for each pretzel.

Even if I had twice as many blend steps for the DRAW-created version, I could not create as smooth a transition as the one created by Xara?

Why?

Here is the major difference between CorelDRAW and Xara (I don't even consider Illustrator or Freehand to be in the same league with DRAW), Xara has a superior anti-aliasing engine. The difference in the two pretzels clearly shows this, at any magnification.

DRAW attempted to copy Xara 1.0's anti-aliasing engine in DRAW 7 and the results were so slow that this mode was not even the default mode.

It has been improved over the latest versions, but is still inferior to Xara.

Which means, Xara produces the cleanest Web graphics. Which is the business your company is in. Correct?

For what it is worth, why don't you use your own copy of Xara at work? Let the others do things the hard way! [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]

Gary

Gary Priester

Moderator Person

Be It Every So Humble...

[timo.heil]

>For what it is worth, why don't you use your own >copy of Xara at work? Let the others do things >the hard way!

The thing is that I don't want to do projects using a file-format (XAR) that the company cannot use because they don't own the application. Just imagine I leave the company (will probably be the case...) and they want to make changes to a website created with Xara :-(

[gwpriester]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR> The thing is that I don't want to do projects using a file-format (XAR) that the company cannot use because they don't own the application. Just imagine I leave the company (will probably be the case...) and they want to make changes to a website created with Xara :-( <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

After you have gone, it's not your problem. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_eek.gif[/img]

Gary

Gary Priester

Moderator Person

Be It Every So Humble...

[Klaus Nordby]

Dumb Graphics Guy: "but it looks so cheap" (the menu buttons)."

Yes, THIS is why it's so crucial for Xara to LOOK good in ALL its details! Graphics people care about "looks", understandably - it's our life blood. The "looks" of details *communicates* - either quality or crap.

XaraX's startup screen, for instance, "the old man" - is NOT a good, professional illustration. Lose it, Xara, and fix the other little thingies which look amateurish and clumsy - and graphics pros won't have such arguments against XaraX.

K

[GooseKirk]

Timo, make sure you're using the latest patch from Xara's website! Xara did get very slow when using shadow effects (and possibly other special effects)... but the new patch solves that problem.

[Sean Sedwards]

If you convert to shapes and export as CMX, artwork is editable in DRAW. That's good enough when you've left the company ;-)

Regards - Sean

[timo.heil]

I have to correct myself, I said:
"When you change the shadow transparency in Draw, it creates a new bitmap (and once again this takes quite a long time)."

I meant the shadow blur, not the transparency.