From: cunniff@cup.portal.com (Ross Alan Cunniff)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.graphics
Subject: Re: Structured Drawing Recommendations?
Date: Sat, 23 Jan 93 22:41:13 PST
Organization: The Portal System (TM)

twang@csc.albany.edu (Teddy Wang) writes:

>ProVector - Looks like, feels like, my god it is xfig!  I've been working 
>	for the computing services here and damn this program looks like
>	the publically (available on unixes running X) available xfig!
>	Did these people develop this themselves or what?  Well I only 
>	played with it once and I wasn't all that impressed, GUI is quite
>	different from other drawing programs, makes learning curve greater.

ProVector is in no way derived from xfig.  Perhaps you saw an early 2.0
version, which may have had some superficial resemblances to xfig, but
2.1 and later have a much improved interface.  Admittedly, a few tools
work somewhat differently from other programs, but we feel that the
tools are BETTER than those other paradigms.  For example, have you ever
tried manually tracing with the typical freehand tool?  ProVector's freehand
tool is actually useful for this task.  ProVector's bezier tool also is
optimized for fast, easy drawing.  Just because somebody else did something
doesn't mean that everybody should copy it.  That said, we DID improve
2.1 (and soon, 2.2) to add things that other drawing programs have, such
as rulers, tools which stay activated, etc.

>Professional Draw (v3.0) - Doesn't yet work with A4000 or 3.0, but a fairly
>	solid program.  I like the GUI, it's fairly easy to learn, though
>	if you are already familiar with Adobe Illustrator, it's quite 
> 	different.  Also it's files are proprietary!

ProVector 2.1 works with the A4000 and 3.0, and 2.2 will support screen
depths greater than 4.  ProVector's native file format is DR2D, the
Amiga standard.  Also, ProDraw has no Undo ability, and does not allow
you to edit multiple projects at one time.

>Art Expressions - I currently own this one, so my opinion is bias.  All 
>	in all the one with the most potential, but unfortunately, it has
>	many bugs to be ironed out, including the fact that it has no ability
>	to do "manual tracing", big mistake soft-logik, most of my business
>	is based on this.  You are relegated to use BME's autotrace (not 
>	quite as good as Adobe Slip Stream or Coral's autotrace), so most
>	of my work is still done on IBM's running Windows...

We at Stylus, Inc. make an effort to assure the quality of our product;
we do NOT ship beta quality software to our customers, we ship FINISHED code.
In comparison with Art Expression, ProVector has the following advantages:

	256-level Undo, with Redo
	Manual trace
	Import any PostScript graphic, not just Adobe Illustrator
		(with optional PSImport module)
	Export HPGL, including special provisions for sign cutting engines
	ARexx interface, which allows nearly unlimited customization
	Speed: ProVector is the fastest drawing program on the Amiga

Version 2.2 will add an interface which complements the Amiga 2.0 and
later interface.  Also up and coming is Silhouette, a combination
autotracing program/24-bit touchup program/image processing program which
will greatly enhance the productivity of artists converting raster
graphics to structured graphics.  Silhouette is to BME as Adobe Photoshop
is to MacPaint.
	
>Teddy


Please, if you have any questions about our product, don't rely on
partially informed, random net opinions.  Contact Stylus, Inc. at
(303)-484-7321, or e-mail me at cunniff@cup.portal.com.

Ross Cunniff
President, Stylus, Inc.
cunniff@cup.portal.com
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.graphics