Re: [Swarm Modelling] painting apps

[Jason Alexander]

It's not quite as fancy as Canvas but if you install fink you can run 
xfig.  It can export to EPS, PDF, MetaFont and several other formats.  
Xfig lets you import bitmaps and put line art over them, too.  It's 
interface is a bit dated but, overall, it's a powerful program and 
generally what I turn to first before looking elsewhere.

Cheers,

Jason

> Two nights ago, I moved in a .jpg from Mapquest of my neighborhood, 
> set its transparency to 50%, used Bezier curves to trace over the 
> important streets in my neighborhood, used the clip-on text feature to 
> attach street names that followed the curve of the street, and had a 
> custom professional looking map of my neighborhood for my girlfriend.  
> The text is spell checked, but I can still extrude it into three 
> dimensions, texture it, and set a color gradient through it.  It can 
> do a lot of the work of Photoshop, including accepting plugins.  And, 
> you can do drawing (like precision vector work), painting (resulting 
> in bitmaps from a variety of brushes, etc), and photo work in one 
> package. Absolutely amazing tool that I use constantly.  Also, the 
> customer support is solid.
--
J. McKenzie Alexander
Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method
London School of Economics and Political Science
Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE