How to do a 'Design Patent' drawing in Xara - any advice?

[shiphen]

>... if you are limited to pure black/white only...

Yes think this goes to the heart of the problem. In effect you aren't allowed shades of grey. [In my opinion this make the patent system out of date to the point of being completely moronic... but it is what it is, I suppose.]

But this lack of shades of grey pixels goes deeper... Because if your CAD system need to create a very fine line, if it is anti-aliasing then it will of course generate grey pixels and if they are pale grey they would simply disappear. Whereas the patent offices sound like they want dotted (i.e. broken) lines rather than grey lines.

Nightmare.

[handrawn]

.... [double post]

[handrawn]

well in the watch [all three in fact], there is cross hatching not stippling, although some of the hatched lines are very short [broken if you like].... I got the impression it was one or the other ?

when I said 'artistic' I put the quote marks round because this is not art, it is reference material, but I wanted to convey the idea that it is referencing what something looks beyond it's mere 'sketleton' so to put it

I have no idea how these drawings are used/archived, but if it is pure black and white it will be a lot smaller file size than graysacale, let alone colour, and they probably have lots and lots and lots of files; plus access times when doing a visual search will be a lot quicker, especially online; they might even vectorise them or composite

black and white only can serve a purpose, it does not have to be out of date or 'moronic' - my cartoon lineart is black and white, I do not want halftone of any kind in the lines; I would like to think it is not out of date [I leave others to determine if it is 'moronic' ]

it could even be said to be a good test of how well your design is thought out

as a matter of interest what software if any do they recommend you use?

[Jonopen]

Regarding the two colour (b/w) drawing, I think it might a case of working out what works for your drawing by changing the export settings to ‘two colours’ and trial and error until you get what you are after.

To get a ‘wobbly’ line you could experiment using the ‘Concentric waves’ live effect. (See example 2).

To get some hatching effect you could try using one of the ‘Two colours shading’ fills. (See example 3).

[handrawn]

interesting idea jono

but when I look at the examples the lines are not wobbly though, they are fussy edged and in places blocky - the former could be a result of hand drawn lines scanned in, the latter an artifact due to resolution

how much this matters I cannot say as i have not had access to the guidance given