Improved Vector Illustration

October 10, 10109

Draw and edit: rectangles, ellipses, circles, regular polygons, stars, square stars, gears, spirals, polygonal spirals, super ellipses and super shapes.
Draw and edit symmetrigons with arbitrarily shaped sides.
Edit ellipse or circle properties to create multiple concentric sections.
Interactively adjust the attributes of any shape type.
Bend the sides of rectangles and regular polygons.
Select clockwise or counterclockwise shape directions.
Regular and normalized star shapes of arbitrary number of corners.

Interactively edit corners of any shapes.
Create and use custom corner shapes (not just circular or flat).
Edit free form curves by moving control points or dragging the curve at any location.
Trim and Join tool to intersect and merge shapes.
Show curve direction when hovering over the shape.
Show starting and ending nodes of a shape.
Edit quadratic and cubic curves of better control of shapes.
Simplify and smooth out curves using the Simplify Path menu command.
Convert any shape to curves, and freely edit its nodes and control points.

Shape operations: Combine, Intersect, Union, Exclude, Cut Out, Inside, Outside, Remove Overlaps, Exclude Back, Divide, Trim and Merge.
Simplify shape at self-intersecting points based on the winding fill rule.
Combine and create complex shapes.
Boolean shape operations without stray nodes.
Combine shapes directly, to create new editable free form shapes.
Combine shapes with boolean operations nondestructively, to edit the original shapes at any time.
Apply boolean operations on a group of objects, to create nondestructive shape combinations.
Use the Shape Builder tool to create complex shapes.

Create and reuse shape styles.
Change the shape of multiple objects, by using shape styles, and adjusting the styles.
Link (reference) the shape of an object, to another named reference object.
Edit the shape of multiple objects by editing reference object shapes.
Create and reuse shape presets everywhere.
Convert text to shapes to edit curves.
Draw smooth shapes with the pencil tool, or create curves using the pen tool.
Use Shape Paint (aka live paint) groups to create dynamically styled artwork.
Pencil tool eraser mode enables the erasing of intersecting path segments.
Use the Path Sketch tool to create complex shapes by sketching simple strokes.

Nondestructive distortion effects applied to object shapes.
The shape effects panel creates and manages multiple shape effects applied to the selected object.
Modify shape effect attributes of the selected objects at any time.
Distort groups of objects, using mesh or envelope distortions.
Bend groups of objects along arbitrary, freely editable shapes.
Warp objects into predefined shapes.
Apply the Elastic Warp effect to distort objects freely.
Create and edit shape effects interactively.

Select pencil and brush stabilizer modes.
Draw variable width outlines using the brush tool.
Edit local width of variable width outlines using interactive tools.
Select and paint with real vector brushes.
Vector brushes may use variable width profiles, the width profile can be adjusted interactively at any time.
Vector brushes contain an arbitrary group of vector objects, distorted and stretched along the painted curve.
Vector brushes may contain arbitrary colors, or can be tinted and shaded with custom colors.
Paint with scatter, pattern and bristle brush types, while retaining vector scalability.

Paint vector effects over any group of shapes to create local distortions.
Select from up to 13 different vector effect brushes.
Apply local twirl, ripple, noise, wave, perturbation, zig-zag distortions to shapes.
Edit brush options by double-clicking on the brush tool icon.
Modify object shapes using the Liquify tool.
Create and apply shape distortions on groups of objects.