HANDLES
- Handles displays end points in the vectorized file; a glance will let
you know if you need more, or fewer, points to get the best possible results.
Although this feature is available from an icon we decided that because
it is so important and is used so often Handles should be available via
a “hot key.” Now you can Press F2 to access Handles.
TEXT
– Text now includes center, left and right justification. This is really
nice for sign and label making applications.
CIRCLE
- Circles now include a center point that is displayed when Handles are
shown. You can snap to the point, or delete it to remove the circle, or
drag it to a new location. Also, circles can be drawn to a specific radius,
at specific coordinates. Double click the Circle tool to specify exact
size, or use the Arc Deform tool to modify the size.
DPI
- When customers complain that the size of the drawing is wrong it is usually
because Dots Per Inch has been entered incorrectly in the FILE/IMPORT RASTER
dialogue. That error factor has been eliminated in this version. Now, once
you’ve entered the name of the raster file you are importing, the program
automatically reads the DPI from the raster file header and places it in
the dialogue.
Automatic conversion from
inches to metric has also been added. These features save you time, aggravation
and gives you vector drawings that are at a 1:1 ratio with the original
scan.
ARC
RADIUS - The Segment Length dialog includes Arc Radius; query
and specify a radius for any Picked arc. Segment Length also allows lines
to be drawn to specific lengths.
OPTIMIZATION
- Optimization now has an aggressiveness setting so that you can increase
or decrease the number of entities removed from any given set of polylines.
The Optimization tool is used to convert imported DXF files, from low-end
vectorizers that contain thousands of short line segments into long lines
and arcs.
SHORT
LINE SEGMENTS - The Optimization tool only optimizes polylines.
Some raster to vector conversion programs produce individual lines that
are not in a polyline format. These entities cannot be optimized. However,
Uncleave Selected Polylines, a new feature accessible from the File menu,
turns short line segments that have common end-point coordinates into polylines
that are optimizable.
DRAW
AT RIGHT ANGLES - You can draw lines and 3-point arcs with the
Draw tool. You can also use Ortho to draw lines at any angle, quickly.
In addition, you can now draw lines at right angles to the previous line
by pressing the Ctrl key when drawing a line.
OFFSET
- Multiple inlines/outlines are now a snap with the Offset tool.
RECTANGLES
- We’ve added the Rectangle tool. Draw closed boxes with a couple
of mouse clicks; it produces 4 lines. Double click the Rectangle tool and
you can give specific starting co-ordinates and size.
STRETCH
– The Stretch tool has been improved so that you may stretch a group of
entities to a specific height and width. This is especially nice after
drawing boxes with the new Rectangle tool. It ensures that your rectangle,
or any given set of polylines, is a specific height and width. Select the
polyline(s) to be stretched then Click twice to access the Stretch dialog.
INFORMATION
- The Information tool is new! It lists the number of entities in any chosen
area, gives perimeter and area calculations, (x,y) end-point positions,
line type, color, line width, radius, extents and other valuable information
about your drawing.
ARROW
KEYS - Panning is improved. The preset pan distance with the
keyboard Arrow keys has been modified, so that the pan distance does not
pan across the entire width of the screen. The new pan distance seems to
be ideal. It’s a great help when hand-tracing poor scans, or inspecting
the quality of highly detailed drawings.
ZOOM
- Alt-i and Alt-o - zoom in/out; the zoom location is the current mouse
position. This is really helpful on very large, or highly detailed drawings
and is a big time saver when you are also using the Arrow keys to pan.
SELECTION
- Cutting Shop users have been able to select one or more entities and
then add entities to the selection by holding down the shift key. Now you
can also deselect selected entities by holding down the shift key.
PRINTING
- Tiled printing has been added. If your vectorized image is larger than
the media you will print or cut, you can tile the image so that it will
tile over several sheets. This feature is particularly useful for vinyl
cutting applications.
VECTOR
TO RASTER - Convert vector drawings back to raster images. This
feature can be very useful for a variety of applications including revectorizing
DXF files from low-end vectorizers.
COPY
– Double click with the Copy tool make multiple copies of any group of
entities, to a specific distance apart.
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