| You know, I just don't believe it. For half the price in most cases you can get an extremely powerful tool that does just about everything and I was surprised it didn't make my coffee. I'll have to talk to ACD Systems about that. Maybe it could be a feature request. Seriously though, Canvas9 does just about everything you can think of when it comes to illustration, publishing, photo editing, web graphics and lots more. If you get the GIS version you also get the ability to edit Shape, DAT and Geo TIFF files. But that's not all. Add into that the Scientific version and 8 bit, 16 bit and FP32 scientific images. Canvas9 is geared towards Illustration, Desktop Publishing, Presentations, Web Content and Animations. Before I go much further I'd like to show you how well Canvas9 deals with bitmap images just in scaling alone. The original was a JPG that was saved at 200 ppi and it's dimensions were 418 x 548 pixels. 
I imported it from the Images menu and then scaled it to fit the 8.5 x 11 document. Now we all know what normally happens when we upscale bitmap images that far. Well, we thought we knew. Take a look below at the render of that resized image. Totally amazing as far as I'm concerned. We all know that vectors scale wonderfully up or down but to get a bitmap to scale up with no distortion is simply amazing! 
A scaled down screen shot of the main interface is below. 
Below is the Configuration Center where you can set up Canvas9. You can set all your preferences, tool and command settings from here. 
Although we'll get into much more detail further into the review, I really like the Symbol Library. Load from disk or from the web. 
Canvas9 sports a 64 bit coordinate system with virtually unlimited zoom (+/- 114,000%) with a document size of up to 2000 by 200 miles. You can have 2 billion objects per document and there is a measly 2 billion control point limit per polygon or bezier curve. My goodness! 
Canvas9 has what is called a SmartToolbox that keeps track of which tool you are using and displays all the drawing tools related to the last tool you chose. The new Attributes Manager is a real plus for Canvas9. Everything is accessible from the Main Toolbox. Canvas9 has Fill, Stroke, Pen, Dashes and Arrow styles predefined or you can create your own and save and share them. 
There is a History Strip attached to the Presets palette so you can get right back to the most recently used Presets. The Docking bar can now be placed on the left or right of the workspace as well as the top. Canvas9 supports 8 and 16 bit image data per channel or pixel. TIFF supports 8 and 16 bit images on import and export. The following filters have been rewritten and support the 8 and 16 bit images as well as FP32 Real support in the Scientific Imaging Edition: -
Gaussian Blur -
Average -
Add noise -
Median, Dust -
Despeckle -
Sharpen -
Sharpen more -
Sharpen edges -
Unsharp mask -
Maximum -
Minimum -
High pass -
Hue saturation -
Levels -
Curves -
Brightness/contrast -
Color balance -
Invert. The Scientific Imaging Edition supports FP32 Real Depth images, Image-J and NIH Image compliant filters, gives direct access to numeric image data, and supports DICOM file formats. There is a Red Eye reduction tool that is so simple to use it's amazing. You can crop to many different predefined paper sizes or create your own. There is also a new Page Cropping tool that will crop all vector content outside a predefined area. There is a new Math expression 2-D Plotting tool that can plot complex 2-D equations in Polar or Cartesian coordinate spaces. Another new cool tool is the Set Document Scale tool that allows you to define a scale using points of reference in the document and then specify their distance in units. Canvas9 has Scripting support for reading and writing 1-, 8-, 16- or 32 bit formats through scripting. You can access the bits-per-channel settings of images. You have access via scripting to a lot of the new filters, can load and save palette settings, specify print options and you have access to system error codes and descriptions. Canvas9 now supports SVG (export), CGM4, PDF (import), EPS (import), DXF (import), DWG (import), AVI (export for Windows) and Quicktime (export for Mac). There are so many supported file formats I got them from their web site so I could be sure to list them all here: | Extension | In | Out | Description | | AI | X | X | Adobe Illustrator | | | | AVI | | X | Movie Format (Windows Only) | | BMP/RLE | X | X | Windows bitmap | | BRK | X | | Brooktrout Fax | | CAL/CALS | X | X | Support Raster Format | | CDR | X | | CorelDraw | | CDT | X | | CorelDraw Template | | CGM | X | X | Computer Graphics Metafile | | CGM (*PIP) | X | | Computer Graphics Metafile with PIP I/II | | CH3 | X | | Harvard Graphics Chart | | CMX | X | | Corel Exchange | | CTM | X | | Clear Text CGM | | CUT | X | | Halo Image | | CVI | X | X | Canvas Image Format | | CVS | X | | Canvas 3.5 and ArtWorks | | CV5 | X | | Canvas 5 | | CNV | X | X | Canvas 6,7,8 | | CVX | X | X | Canvas9 Professional Edition | | DAT | X | | ASCII GIS Shape File | | DCX | X | X | Graphics | | DICOM | X | | Embedded Scientific Images | | DRW | X | X | Micrografx Draw | | DWF | X | | WHIP! Internet Drawing | | DWG | X | | Drawing (AutoCAD) | | DXF | X | X | Vector Graphics (AutoCAD export) | | EMF | X | X | Enhanced Windows Metafile | | EPS | X | X | Encapsulated Postscript | | EXE | | X | Canvas Slide Show (Windows Only) | | FMV | X | | Frame Vector Metafile | | FPX | X | | Kodak FlashPix | | GAL | X | | HP Graphics Gallery | | GDF | X | | IBM Graphics | | GEM | X | | Digital Research Graphics | | GIF | X | X | Indexed Image Format | | GIF Animated | X | X | Multi Frame GIF | | HGL/HPGL/HPP | X | X | Hewlett Packard Format | | HTM/HTML | | X | Hypertext Markup Language | | ICA | X | | image Object | | ICO | X | X | Icon File (Windows) | | IFF | X | X | Amiga Image Format | | IGES/IGS | X | X | IGES Drawing | | IMG | X | | GEM Image | | JPG/JPE/JPEG | X | X | Internet Image Format | | MAC/MPT | X | | MacPaint Image Format | | MET | X | | OS/2 PM Metafile | | MSP | X | | Microsoft Paint | | PCD | X | | Kodak PhotoCD | | PCX | X | X | Paintbrush Image | | PDF | X | X | Adobe Acrobat | | PIC | X | | Macintosh Picture | | PNG | X | X | Internet Image Format | | PPT | X | | Microsoft Power Point | | PRE | X | | Lotus Freelance | | PRN | X | | Printer (PS) Files | | PRS | X | | Harvard Graphics | | PS/EPS | X | | Postscript Files | | PSD/PDD | X | X | Photoshop Image | | MOV | | X | QuickTime Movie (Macintosh only) | | RAS | X | | Sun Raster | | RAW/TXT/CSV | X | X | binary, ASCII, or comma delimited image | | RND | X | | Autoshade | | RTF | X | | Rich Text Format | | SAT | X | | Spatials ACIS Data | | SH3 | X | | Harvard Graphics Show | | SHP | X | | ESRI GIS Shape File | | SVG | | X | Scalable Vector Graphics | | SWF | | X | Macromedia Flash | | SY3 | X | | Harvard Graphics Symbol | | TGA/VDA/ICB/VST | X | X | Targa Bitmap formats | | TIF/TIFF | X | X | Image | | TIF/TIFF | X | X | Geo-enabled TIF Image | | TPL | X | X | Canvas Template | | TXT | X | | plain text | | WMF | X | X | Microsoft Metafile (early version) | | WPG | X | X | WordPerfect Graphic | | NOTES: File formats in BLUE are available with the GIS Mapping Edition. Those in RED are available with the Scientific Imaging Edition. CGM*PIP in GREEN and is available separately. | One of the major things I noticed about Canvas9 is the initial load time and the new quickness with which it responds even under a heavy load. This is an impressive improvement over previous Canvas versions. Both the Windows and the Mac versions look, work and behave terrifically and are very stable! Canvas9 is like having Photoshop, Illustrator and CorelDraw all in one efficient package only better! Take a look at the price, it's simply amazing to get all that you get for a very low price! If you get Canvas9 Pro, GIS and Scientific Imaging all together is still less than the cost of just one of the competitors products! Compare Canvas9 with Illustrator 10, FreeHandMX, CorelDraw 11 and CorelDesigner 10 here. Go have a look and take a test drive of Canvas9 today! |