What version

[d bushey]

I happen to be using Draftsight and Inkscape with Windows 8. Have been thinking about adding Corel to what would be a good fit.

[beefy]

I've got X5 but when I'm ready to part with another 2-3 hundred I'll upgrade to X6. Each release gets a few new features so I'd just buy the latest. I think Powertrace got a big improvement in X5, maybe it's even better in X6.

Keith.

[SignTorch Vector Art]

if I'm not mistaken, X5 does not have chamfer and fillet options on contours, cannot run in 64 bit space, or use multi-core processing

that's the only big differences I can think of at the moment

X6 also has some new tools like attract and repel and page-numbering that are semi-useful

I don't use powertrace..... I don't think it changed in X6....

[beefy]

Hi Signtorch,

do you have a preferred auto-tracing program. Some "heavies" on the Coreldraw forum said that despite having Coreldraw and Adobe Illustrator they use Vector Magic most of the time for their auto tracing.

Keith.

[SignTorch Vector Art]

I've tried them all and I haven't found any that I like better than autotrace an old free command line program (I think there is an autotrace plugin for inkscape)

They all have their own advantages and disadvantages

Autotrace is great at making smooth flowing curves (for natural objects), it's weakness is it doesn't recognize or incorporate straight lines (or circles), they always come out wavy, so it is not so great for unnatural objects, but sharp turns are usually smooth with few excess nodes, and it can do centerline tracing, but it is written in C and has weak memory management which limits how big a picture can be, and it can take a very long time.

Vector Magic is just the opposite, lines come out nice and straight, but sharp turns come out messier, and it can't do centerlines, and it is a multi-step process where you can supposedly adjust how it works along the way, but I didn't get into all that too much

I also liked scan2cad and imagaro and illustrator more than usual but I don't remember the specifics, except imagaro has a built in font identification procedure that is cumbersome but interesting

You just have to try them and figure out which one is most accurate and easiest to clean up. Which depends heavily on what kind of images you're tracing and what kind of vector (cleanup) software and skills and patience you have.

I've heard that Illustrator CS6 has a whole new tracing engine that is supposed to be great, but I haven't tried it,