Illustration/Design Software

[List, Christopher]

Tee hee. It's so funny to see different people's opinion of software. 
I think that in general, whatever you use the most you will feel most
comfortable with and like it the best. Me, I've been using Corel since
version 3 - my ASM-1 faceplate design was done with v3. As were all of
the faceplates seen here;
http://www.mindspring.com/~clist/Spunky/spunky.html
(check out the "module closeup")
I started doing faceplates with it at a time when I knew very little
about how to use it and had no trouble. I now have v7 - fancier, more
tricks (that I'll never use), slower and bigger, but still does all the
old stuff the same way, so I feel comfortable with it and will stick
with it. I tried Illustrator 7 and couldn't get into it - it's very
"Mac-like" and I'm not used to the interface.

I think either program will work equally well for what you want to do,
and after you learn the basics you will not feel you need anything else,
so it's probably just a matter of cost. FWIW, however, my time to get
productive doing faceplate-type drawings was smaller with Corel than it
was with Illustrator - but hey, that's me, it's a different interface...


BTW, in my experience finding people to produce my faceplates, Autocad
was the only file format they wanted - in about 9 out of 10 cases.
Illustrator is undisputably the industry standard for graphic artists,
but I don't think it's the same with manufacturing engineers. I have
Autocad R14, - it's a killer app, but it's just too intricate and
technical to use (or learn) casually. I believe both Illustrator and
Corel can export to Autocad "dxf" files. 

- Chris


On Thursday, April 23, 1998 11:13 PM, dave [SMTP:dpattee at magi.com]
wrote:
> My Friend
> 
> Adobe Illustrator is the graphics industry standard for drawing
circles,
> crosshairs, pot ticks, or lines. Please don't get Corel products. They
> suck. Period. 
> 
> I work in Illustrator everyday and there is little it can't do. Its
> great for technical stuff and yeah its vector based.
> 
> Get Illustrator.
> 
> dave