[comp.sys.mac] Speed of Redraw in Drawing programs

tomc@mntgfx.mentor.com (Tom Carstensen) (05/20/88)

Well, I've had a chance to test most of the commercially
available drawing software programs for the Mac, to
see if any are better for drawing electronic schematics
than MacDraw.  Basically, NO.

MacDraw far out runs the other drawing program I test in
terms of speed of redrawing a drawing.  With schematics,
and the like, there are usually thousands of objects to
draw.  MacDraw is somewhat slow at redrawing them, but
all of the other drawing programs are slower.  Here's my
summary:

    Aldus FreeHand      Great drawing program, still slower
    Canvas              VERY VERY VERY Slow !!!
    Cricket Draw        Decent drawing program, but somewhat
                        slower on the redraw
    SuperPaint          It was slower, and not really suited
                        to drawing schematic diagrams

If MacDraw beats all of these in speed, and MacDraw II it
supposed to be many, many times faster the MacDraw, it looks
like MacDraw II could be an awesome program!

MacDraw, which has been around from the beginning, still
outruns the latest and greatest drawing programs in speed !!

:------------------------------------------------------------:
: Tom Carstensen         Usenet: tomc@mntgfx.MENTOR.COM      :
: Mentor Graphics                Delphi: CARSTENSEN          :
:                                GEnie:  CARSTENSEN          :
:                                                            :
:     . . . Ah, what I wouldn't give to be spat at in the    :
:           face.  I used to lay awake at night dreaming of  :
:           being spat at in the face.                       :
:                             - Monty Python (Life of Brian) :
:------------------------------------------------------------:

eric@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu (Eric Fielding) (05/27/88)

In a recent article tomc@mntgfx.mentor.com (Tom Carstensen) wrote:
>MacDraw far out runs the other drawing program I test in
>terms of speed of redrawing a drawing.  With schematics,
>and the like, there are usually thousands of objects to
>draw.  MacDraw is somewhat slow at redrawing them, but
>all of the other drawing programs are slower.  Here's my
>: Tom Carstensen         Usenet: tomc@mntgfx.MENTOR.COM      :

You did not mention that you had tried MacDraft.

I have found that MacDraft is significantly faster than MacDraw
for redrawing lots of objects. I have tried downloading some graphics
from our VAX via VersaTerm Pro which creates MacDraw documents,
and several which wer just too painful to work with in MacDraw were
tolerable in MacDraft. More than a few thousand lines is bad under either
program, even on a Mac II, so I end up sending the PostScript directly
to the LaserWriter from the Vax. So much for WSIWYG :-(.

				++Eric