Yani in building mode... he *** at drawing and as accuracy goes he needs a computer. A pencil snapper that can't draw a straight line. Lucky for the tools, like a laser level.
A router "look at those oh so cute joins"
So I did a month of homework and found a few things that are interesting and curious.
https://www.mozaiksoftware.com/
Every wonder how these kitchen companies do the software? Do they draw it up on Autocad from home grown templates?
NUP the whole thing is a package from shop front to shop back.
"Exports to Paperless Shop" It is a parts list but I suspect it includes billing components.
https://kcdsoftware.com/doors-plus/
If doors and drawers are your company’s specialty, KCD Software’s Doors Plus is a stand-alone, template design software to communicate with your nested based CNC router.
Hundreds of templates are included in the software like doors, drawer fronts and dovetail drawer boxes. It’s also easy to create your own one-of-a-kind custom templates. Parametric tool paths can be assigned for your multiple tool operations. Create your own custom libraries for doors, drawers, wine racks, fluted pilasters, valances and more for traditional and CNC manufacturing.
Doors Plus includes over 300 ready-to-use custom component templates. The order-entry system makes it easy to enter your custom items and modify details on the fly. Doors Plus gives you more custom product capacity, flexibility and efficiency than ever before.
What's interesting is the narrow vertical market and the end to end nature of the software.
Sign manufacture has moved that direction about a decade ago. Hand held computer guided gear you just need an SVG file and a printer.
Computer aided routing tables have been used in sign companies for over 30 years. Our company started using them in the late 1980's. We recently bought a new 5' X 10' Multicam table. Full service custom sign companies still have to design lots of items from scratch and fabricate at least some of what they build in-house. I do not feed our routing tables clip art merely grabbed from some library of pre-fab sign designs. The only things I get to re-use are standardized signs for a company with multiple or many locations. I'll also re-use and modify items like electrical section detail drawings of things like channel letters when a city's sign code require those kinds of drawings to get an installation permit.
Some bottom feeder sign companies will hire anyone with a pulse to try to do design work. But to productive or actually good at the job sign design does require some real artistic talent and design sensibility, not to mention a grasp of geometry. A clip art library of pre-fab signs isn't going to bail out someone with no talent.
Wholesale companies who manufacture items like aluminum extrusion cabinets have their own semi-automated setups to mass produce parts. They'll have libraries of computer files they re-use like the templates Yani mentioned in his post.
As for hand-held devices, none are replacing full fledged PCs any time soon. I do own and use an iPad Pro (with an Apple Pencil), but it is a niche device to supplement design work. It's great for on-screen drawing tasks, but it falls short as a full-blown computer. Our routing tables, digital printers and channel letter return machine are all connected to regular desktop PCs. It may be technically possible to drive those things using a portable tablet or even a smart phone. However, that invites the user to leave the routing table unattended, which really isn't a good idea. S*** happens.
These faces and lines that drop off everywhere... it was a format designed to run on a 286 computer. It would be interesting to have a program that worked in 'vectors', not silly lines.
We forget how spoiled we are by software that has had 30 years of development.
It's a bit rough, no hints to quick keys in tool menus, Some times very difficult to get an object to sit on another in 3D space. Things break from interactions and need careful grouping and component construction...
Still I manage this by staying up all night.
I think I started from a blank sheet 7 times.
Rhino might be a possibility if conceptual is a requirement, https://www.rhino3d.com/ it's $995 + $495 for the additional plugin.
Good stuff.
In the end, the big opportunities are in workflow. You can't just throw CAD at Draw and call that workflow. There are way more opportunities in this for Corel than people think. Corel need to re-imagine workflow. They have good code, albeit a bit ordinary, but they are using a workflow model from Windows 3.1.
That's where following the Adobe model is going to royally # Corel. That's the Win 3.1 model of applications, apps work but they are poorly linked.
Corel need to go back to basics are review the model of what an app is then work out historic errors. One of those errors is putting bitmap stuff in Draw while have a poor relationship to PP. It just adds to the confusion of the interface for very little gain. The energy should have, easy in retrospect, gone into complete integration of PP into Draw and not pulling in some features.
In place of that, a simple tab that opened whatever bitmap you point to in Draw in a full featured image editor within Draw.
It "feels like" they should have given parts of the Draw engine 3D capabilities, a new code base, then spat out CAD files rather than using AutoCAD logic of dots and points.
Why do you think I complain about the implications of the lousy implementation of the keep desktop objects on layer feature? That in itself is a paramount example of not understanding multiple industry usage of a workstation and secondary industry support.
To make it worse, when I got Designer, that came with Draw, I was unable to update Draw with patches. I had to dump Designer. I could not run both versions of Draw on the same system.
No real interface between PaintShop Pro and Draw or Photo-PAINT, same with Designer and Draw, CAD and Draw. The web sharing feature isn't color managed.
Making various Corel applications work together is a task. PaintShop is application color managed, what a PITA. the only file format of any real use between the applications is TIF. I have to convert all files to a single bit depth and color profile. Set PSP to match and think. It's worth it as PSP brings to the table many things that Photo-PAINT lacks.
Also since the Sony incident I must by contract strip all EXIF data from all supplied images before editing. It's automated so it's not bad.
It got messy when Corel started to buy existing products. Yes they got a work over but because they weren't a part of the original design they were never something that could be fully integrate.
Corel need to invest in development not buying stuff.
They could integrate better but the owners have no idea, the olde timers are getting along for a pension and the middle-aged staff have no core understanding. The feedback Core gets is from the I want to do crap graphics on my tablet and phone crowd.
In graphics they have Draw which needs two cycles of just bug fixes, especially CFM to reestablish the reputation. Then work on PDF importation.
They have two image editors, Photo-PAINT is great for what it can do, needs two cycles of bug fixes. Then it needs either two cycles of improvements in noise filters, a chromatic aberration filter, or a direct integration with PaintShop Pro. After that it needs DOCUMENTATION!!!!!
I would advise corporate to order bug fixes and a direct integration with PSP so as not to rock the PSP installed user base boat. That user base does not have what it takes for industry work and they buy that program big time. The extra bucks are peanuts for users and with both applications high end image post processing works really well.
I suggest increased support for cameras in Aftershot Pro 3.
I'd suggest a bundle package the CorelDRAW Graphics Suite, AfterShot Pro 3 and PaintShop Pro.
Any image inside Draw should open with any image editor. They need an interface for that.
But PP belongs to being integrated with Draw properly. That means loading up PP in the background and having a single instance for photo edits.
Better would be a "tab" within Draw that opened the bitmap with full tools.
The problem is that they separate, then integrate. Which creates monster apps full of menus and feature that are active eve when they are "turn off". All you get doing that is interface clutter and user headache.
That's part of what workflow is about and why it is a growing problem. Too much *** in your face when you don't need it.
They need to go the "Resolve" route. (I'll do the Resolve stuff in brackets)
You only need the corrections type bitmap corrections in Draw. If you are doing something more than use the full app.
The issues to fix first are
20 years ago editing a bitmap was special. Not so special anymore. Not trying to do it with 4MB of memory, what PP was designed to do. Not in a world that lacks libraries of code. Not in a world where exceptional bitmap editors are common. The world has changed and PP didn't keep up.
Trimble... 80yo and still running a public company. Have a read of his profile. This is the dude behind SketchUp. 15% of revenue to R&D. Utilizing GPS was how they got started. https://spectrum.ieee.org/charles-trimble-bet-his-company-on-gps
I'm liking it more as I use it. The developers check through the forums and look at where people are having issues and make videos about those issues. Don't know if that would work for Draw as most of the issues are ID10T.
Don't be insulting ID10T's where do you think they got the idea for CFM.
The problem is generational, the ability to think needs to make a come back. Today they want because they're intitled. Earning is a concept that's not in style.
It's no wonder that art and graphics art degrees have been moved to the top of the list of degrees that you won't get your money back on.
I find the interface with Photo-PAINT works for me, with that said I do all my editing in the application and import edited files except for extracting images from client files and color tweaks on imported images due to contrast issues with file content.
I then use the edit bitmap feature and Photo-PAINT launches even with 500 meg images in about 3 seconds and files return instantly.
Draw takes memory, processor and display card power I spend about $300 extra when I build a system and that makes Draw life easier.