Xara Designer Pro X9 Released

[WilliamHere]

wow - livebrush looks nice - just brushed around a little bit with the free version. how good is vector export with the pro version?

things like drawing aids in vectorscribe i hope to see some day in xara. like the rounding corners tool. or some of the vector filters in illustrator. eg generate a waveline or add some distortion or roughen a line.

bb,

Fly

Yes, the vectorscribe features are superb! Too bad it only works with Adobe Illustrator.

[WilliamHere]

Those look great. (Spiro for Inkscape starting at 6:20)

I'll add Colliderscribe to this list. It would be lovely to have some of those controls directly in Designer Pro.
http://astutegraphics.com/products/colliderscribe/

Or how about DynamicSketch:
http://astutegraphics.com/products/dynamicsketch/
Repeat sketching (1:12) - Intelligent path joining (1:28)

Or check out some of the features of Livebrush:
http://livebrush.com/
In general I find Designer Pro a lot easier to use than other software, the basic features are implemented in a way that's intuitive, easy and fast. There are still a lot of things Xara can improve upon, and that's just not happening. Not a single improvement to the core vector tools. A real shame.

Yes, much needed and overdue additions and updates on the vector tools.

[Know1]

wow - livebrush looks nice - just brushed around a little bit with the free version. how good is vector export with the pro version?

The vector export is limited.
From the FAQ: The Pro version add's over 60 more brush styles, the ability to customize the canvas size, and add's vector export *.
* Vector export is only for lines drawn in Livebrush. Vector decoration export is not supported at this time.

I've made a quick image to illustrate this and also added the SVG file: exported-from-livebrush.svg



1, 3, 6, 7 only the lines are exported.
2, 4, 5, 8 export just fine. (Edit: number 5 also has missing bits, those floating triangles. I hadn't noticed that before)
9 and 10 are pure decorations so nothing is exported.

2 and 5 also have their transparency levels intact as you can see when you import the SVG in Xara.

Livebrush needs some work here and there, and I don't think we'll see an update for it anytime soon. But for 10 bucks this has been one of my better purchases. It's like a sandbox environment for brushes where you can just experiment and go crazy.

[Fred vanderZee]

Fred - Have you filled a support request at Xara.com. And can you explain what you mean by no support for dpi > 300? Do you mean resolutions that are higher than 300dpi? If so, highlight the number and key in the resolution you want.

Several times. They send me some solutions to try out, that didn't work. After sending some examples images and my results - on their request - I didn't get any response but for an e-mail several weeks later that my ticket was closed due to me not taking any action. :\ Figured out a way myself to export my image in parts and stitch them all together using iview.

I already knew you can fill in higher values in the dpi box, but that doesn't work for me either. Guess it's the 30000 pixel barrier. My images sometimes need to printed very huge (even several meters wide) and since the pdf-export doesn't work, I have to resort to digital stitching.

[pauland]

My images sometimes need to printed very huge (even several meters wide)

I'm confused by this, since usually large prints of several metres are usually printed at a lower DPI rather than a larger one. I think I have heard people recommending low DPI requirements for billboards and the like, simply because nobody is viewing that image close-to so a dense DPI is a total waste.

Perhaps someone else actively printing large banners may wish to contribute.

[Fred vanderZee]

I don't print for billboards but make thangka's. These are highly detailed images, that also need to be perfect up close. For most sizes, 300dpi is ok but I did have a commission once for a thangka of 3 meters (10ft) wide. And they can be even bigger.

See http://outsider.xara.com/art/november12/

[pauland]

Quite detailed and ornate work - impressive.

Still no better with the 64 bit version?

[Nostaw]

Still no support for dpi > 300 and pdf-export of my images still doesn't work (gets stuck on the old 28% barrier). And not much news in the vecor drawing department. Oh well, maybe next time...

Fred if you have Photoshop 64bit and lots of memory try this:

Open up your artwork in Xara. Place rectangles over the artwork, for example 3 columns, 2 rows, to cover the entire image. Best is to use a calculator and place and size rectangles to ensure you don't have any gaps in between and they are perfectly aligned next to each other. Do not use any line color when placing rectangles, just any fill color (e.g. black).

Then select all rectangles and set them all to no color, no fill, no line.

Now select the very first rectangle (change to wire mode temporary to select it) and press CTRL+SHIFT+E and export a crazy resolution like 7000 pixels width (Color depth: "True Color"!). Do this for each rectangle until they are all saved. Then open Photoshop and import each slice and stitch them back together. You can export any artwork with insane high resolution by placing and exporting rectangles and stitching them back in Photoshop.

[iamtheblues]

Whilst on the subject of the Illustrator plugins from Astute Graphics, I see that they are releasing new ones thick and fast. The latest is MirrorMe which is a must have for me (and probably all of you who have voiced an interest). I urge you to watch at least some of the videos presented by Astute Graphics director Nick van der Walle, who is a joy to listen to. Those with Illustrator CS5 or later will be sorely tempted, even at $58 / €45 / £39.

[Fred vanderZee]

@Pauland: thank you. And the 64bit version didn't help. I hoped it would allow allocating larger chunks of memory to use for calculating higher dpi images. But alas.

@Nostaw: that's exactly what I do and I use the anchor tool to 'glue' them together. I don't have Photoshop but iview has some neat functionality that does the same trick.
But thanks for the reply anyway