Corel Draw ($$$$) vs Inkscape (free)

[Beefy]

Hi All,

has anybody out there got any reasons for choosing Corel Draw over Inkscape, as it applies to cnc shape cutting and possibly artistic design for metal / wood art (i.e. plasma and routing). I know Inkscape is free but sometimes in the long term you can end up making more money by choosing a tool which wasn't free.

Certain considerations I have are:
1. Learning curve - is Corel easier to learn and use, and are there heaps more tutorials available on the web, Youtube, books, etc. I think this point is particularly important, it's easy when you are shown how.
2. Output - DXF Tools is available for Corel to give a much better dxf file with fewer nodes and straight lines, and more smooth curves in their place.
3. The new tracing capabilities in Corel X5. Is this a big deal or do you end up doing lots of manual tracing anyway, however good the trace facility is.
4. Available plugins if there are any which are of use to us cnc guys.
5. Any other considerations which haven't crossed my mind.

Thanks,

Keith.

[Signmaker]

Corel is used in our shop to draw artistic parts for our routing, laser cutting & waterjet machinery.... so yes, Corel is perfect for everything you want to do.

Corel is cheap, easy to use, easy to learn and very, very effective. Being able to draw huge parts at 1:1 scale gives it the edge over rival software like Adobe illustrator.

The best older version of Corel is v12... this is the version I would recommend.

CorelTrace is a useful tool which you get for no extra cost.... you might use it, you might not. If you need to translate a Bitmap image into a cut ready vector file you'll kick yourself for not having it.

DXF is a foul, horrific file extension which we avoid at all costs.... AI & EPS are all we will use for our machines and Corel works like a champ with these file formats. It's a common misconception that Corel has bad DXF handling... it doesn't. If you draw the same part in Autocad and export it using their export filter you get the same cr@ppy results.... the DXF file extension is pi$$poor and Corel simply recreates it in the manner AutoDesk chose to write their stupid file format.

[Beefy]

Thanks Signmaker,

I'm in Australia and can't seem to find an older version of Corel Draw. Ebay never seems to come up with anything, only X4/5.

I've actually printed some of your other posts talking about graphics, noticed you're definitely not a dxf fan, interesting stuff. I think I'll definitely be getting Corel Draw when cash permits. X5 is about $500 here in Australia. I wanted to get the student version just to learn it then upgrade later to the full version when I had learnt it and was ready to make money, but they don't allow you to upgrade the student version.

I Googled for Corel Draw and Inkscape tutorials. Came up with 11 million for results for Corel Draw and 300 thousand for Inkscape so looks like as well as Corel Draw being more powerful and easier to learn/use, teaching material is easier to get hold of. I know you hate dxf but a lot seems to get said for DXF Tools for Corel Draw which is supposed to give a very good DXF output for machine use. DXF plugin tools for other programs seem to get mixed opinions.

My cam program is Sheetcam and I don't know what other file formats it would take from Corel Draw.

Cheers,

Keith.

[flyinwilly]

I've used both and prefer Corel Draw. Probably because I'm more familiar with it. I mainly use it for designing signs where it is really easy to meld text onto the main sign with just a few keystrokes and then output the dxf file for sheetcam.

I purchased X4 off of Ebay for $69 about a year ago but I can't remember who the seller was. I see that X4 is selling for around $50 now and it has all you need for flat work with Sheetcam.

Willy

[Torchhead]

The best thing about Inkscape is it's free. If you are anti DXF (and I understand why, but it's not all the fault of the format) then you now have an option of using Inkscape and take its native SVG format straight into SheetCAM TNG.

I've been using Corel Draw since version 2 on a blistering 286 machine and I can do stuff with it with no thought process. I found most of the same tools in Inkscape but named differently and in different menu spots.....kinda like having to cook in someone elses kitchen.

Corel has a lot more neat tools for doing illustrations and multipage documents but none of that is important if all you are doing is CNC with it!

i would say if you can get an older copy of Corel cheap and add in the DXFTool utility then you will be somewhat ahead of the inkscape (their DXF handling is dismal). It's close enough that if you have o spend too much for CorelDraw Suite then go with Inkscape (that has a good trace program as well). No auto trace is good enough you won't have to do some cleanup. The worse the original the more work. At some point it's faster to import the bitmap and hand trace than to spend hours cleaning up what a computer thinks is a line or a closed object.

[Teknition]

If you are anti DXF (and I understand why, but it's not all the fault of the format) then you now have an option of using Inkscape and take its native SVG format straight into SheetCAM TNG.

Tom, is there any advantage to exporting from Corel into SheetCam as an SVG instead of DXF?

Brad

[Torchhead]

Tom, is there any advantage to exporting from Corel into SheetCam as an SVG instead of DXF?

Brad

Native DXF export filters in both Corel and Inkscape take all arcs and circles and break them into small line segments. The solution for Corel is to replace the export filter with DXFTool. There is no solution for Inkscape (for DXF).

There are two places you can screw up a DXF transfer: In the export from the drawing application and in the import. While DXF supports arcs it does not support bezier (complex curves like an "S"). If the file is exported sans arcs, there is no way to get them back on an import. If the export is good but the import is poor, the results will be just as bad. If both are flawed you get unusable transfers.

SheetCAM's support for direct SVG file transfer (and a reported improved "curve fitting" algorithm) offers a single step transfer. IF you are going to use Inkscape and SheetCAM for plasma CNC, the direct transfer would be the best way to go. Files are stored in SVG format in Inkscape so it's not even an "export" step.

I have to agree that DXF is my least favorite vector file format. IF for no other reason than AutoDesk owns it and changes it anytime the mood strikes, so trying to have a standard requires you to work to the lowest common set of functions. Most software developers could care less if their software will handle all of the latest changes in the format as long as the basic shapes get across. All good graphics people and signmakers know that there are much better vector and mixed file formats. AI and EPS (pretty much the same as both are based on Adobe's Postscript "language") and most commercial grade vector clipart is in those formats.

BTW, Inkscape will open CorelDraw CDR files which surprised me because no other package I know will and let you edit them. All of my master artwork is in CDR format so it makes swapping back and forth pretty easy. Corel also imports SVG pretty good too.

TOM caudle
www.CandCNC.com

[Teknition]

Thanks for the explanation Tom. I have DXFtool and will stick with it.
Brad

[panozeng]

While on the subject, does anyone know of a good explanation of what needs to be done in Inkscape to get to a usable SVG file? I have not used CorelDraw since version 2.0 in high school - which I probably still have on floppies somewhere. I have installed Inkscape and played a little, but honestly not sure what the "goal" is. So right now I'm limited to stuff I can draw in CAD and export as a DXF. But, I'd like to figure out Inkscape enough to do some artwork; specially text. Is there a dumbed down tutorial somewhere to help with this?

[Var]

There are a lot of tutorials including video screencasts for Inkscape.
screencasters.heathenx.org More than 100 video tutorials! Highly recommended for viewing!
the inkscape tutorials weblog

Hidden CAD functions Introduction to Inkscape's Geometry Constructions Tool on Vimeo


Last CorelDraw I've used was X3 and it's was hightly unstable and slow. Same things I can say about older version. Inkscape works faster and it's much more easier to to work with Curves in Inkscape.

Inskcape is crossplatform and free.

More over you can generate Gcode straight from Inkscape using Gcodetools extension.

It benefits a lot of functions for CNC Mills, Lathes, Plasma and Laser cutters.

Here's a link to Gcodetools developers site: cnc-club.ru english Gcodetools support

[landmark]

I to have had great luck with inkscape. In my short comparision to corel x4. I think inkscape has a better auto trace. I find the default settings give me a better trace than I'm able to get with corel.

I had no luck with dxf tool it gave me broken lines on import to sheetcam. I was told that it woldn't work well with a auto traced image. Well I don't know how I could be productive without auto tracing?

So lately I have been doing some minor adjustments to the inkscape auto trace and lowering the resolution of the sheetcam drawing input. This gives allows me to reduce my points in half and once it is cut on mach the CV settings smooth any blockiness from lowered resolution. But with plasma I don't think you could tell the difference anyway.

[Var]

I had no luck with dxf tool it gave me broken lines on import to sheetcam. I was told that it woldn't work well with a auto traced image.

So does that mean that with other (not auto traced) paths export works fine?

I've got a problem similar to yours. All paths that were imported from dxf were split into the segments.

Exporting to dxf is done by /usr/share/inkscape/extensions/ps2dxf.sh
which uses pstoedit

there's an option in pstoedit which does the following:

simulate clipping.
Most output formats of pstoedit don't have native support for clipping. For that pstoedit offers an option to perform the clipping of the graphics directly without passing the clippath to the output driver. However, this results in curves being replaced by a lot of line segments and thus larger output files. So use this option only if your output looks different from the input due to clipping. In addition, this "simulated clipping" is not exactly the same as defined in PostScript. There might be lines drawn at the double size. Also clipping of text is not supported unless you also use the -dt option.