[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
Re: [Swarm Modelling] painting apps
From: |
Darren Schreiber |
Subject: |
Re: [Swarm Modelling] painting apps |
Date: |
Sat, 15 Feb 2003 15:23:01 -0800 |
I use Canvas 8.0 (http://www.deneba.com/products/canvas8/default2.html)
which is $399 and OS X native (they have a good educational discount.)
This is probably overkill for just curves, but this is my favorite
graphics tool and I have been using it for over 10 years. It is object
oriented in design and could be used to replace Adobe Illustrator and
Photoshop, Freehand, etc because text, bit maps, vector images, etc are
all neatly integrated.
Two nights ago, I moved in a .jpg from Mapquest of my neighborhood, set
its transparency to 50%, used Bezier curves to trace over the important
streets in my neighborhood, used the clip-on text feature to attach
street names that followed the curve of the street, and had a custom
professional looking map of my neighborhood for my girlfriend. The
text is spell checked, but I can still extrude it into three
dimensions, texture it, and set a color gradient through it. It can do
a lot of the work of Photoshop, including accepting plugins. And, you
can do drawing (like precision vector work), painting (resulting in
bitmaps from a variety of brushes, etc), and photo work in one package.
Absolutely amazing tool that I use constantly. Also, the customer
support is solid.
I noticed on their website that the old version (Canvas 7) is available
for $85 as a download
(http://www.deneba.com/products/canvas7se/default.html) (why don't more
software companies do that with old versions??) I used version 6 for a
very long time and used it in Classic mode until I got grant money for
a new version. If you don't mind working in Classic mode and price is
an issue then Canvas 7 would be a great solution.
Both versions of Canvas will output into about any format you can think
of.
If you already have Microsoft Word, it has some drawing tools included.
They are kind of idiosyncratic though and if you are using LaTex, you
probably aren't a Microsoft fan.
Again, I would highly recommend Canvas, it can do the work of a lot of
other tools in an nice integrated package. And, at 85$ for the old
version the price point would not be beatable.
Darren
On Saturday, February 15, 2003, at 02:36 PM, Scott Christley wrote:
I know this isn't a modeling question but hopefully those of you
writing papers which include graphics have found a solution.
I'm looking for a basic painting application with tools for drawing
graph type structures; circles, boxes, curvy lines(bezier curves),
arcs, arrows, labels, that sort of stuff, but not with freehand which
will just look sloppy. The app should also be able to export the
images into a format that can be processed by LaTex, encapsulated
postscript (EPS) being optimal. Lastly, I want it to run on Mac OSX
but I'm also open to any free software for GNU/Linux.
I know I can probably buy one of those expensive Adobe packages but
that seems overkill for the type of stuff I want to paint.
Any suggestions?
thanks
Scott
_______________________________________________
Modelling mailing list
address@hidden
http://www.swarm.org/mailman/listinfo/modelling