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Lace R-XP is the latest in
our line of leading Lace Design software packages and takes
Lace pattern design firmly into the 21st
Century!
However, as with all ILSOFT products, we've
retained the renowed user-friendlyness, flexibility and power
that our customers expect. We've teamed up with lace making
experts from around to world to create a truly remarkable
design package.
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The main design screen with inset photo showing finished lace. (Design by kind permission of Ruth Budge) |
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If you are not already
a Lace 2000 user why not take a quick look at the Lace 2000
page by using the menu at the top of the page.
Lace
R-XP includes all the Lace 2000 features, many of which have
been improved and enhanced, and has added a whole host of
powerful and yet simple to use new ones!
The sections
below details the main new features in R-XP.
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Any Angle, User-Defined Grid
Angles
Design your lace with any angle grid
from 5 to 85 degrees. Select from the list in 1 degree
increments or even select your own custom angle to 0.1 degree
accuracy. Ideal for matching to old designs or for that custom
sized piece. As with Lace 2000 you also have the choice of
angled or straight grids with or without a corner and our
unique adjustable Polar grids for accurate drawing of circular
designs.
Shape Drawing and
Filling
Draw or fill in a variety of shapes
including circle, rectangle, rotatable square, diamond,
triangle, pentagon, hexagon and star. Drawn shapes are
rotatable and editable and the star shape allows user
selection of the number of points and the depth of the points.
Freehand
Select
Use this tool to quickly select any
area of the design of any shape. Makes selecting complex areas
of your design a breeze.
Fill
Freehand Select with Ground
Use the
freehand select tool to select a complex area and then fill it
with a fill of your choice form the fill library (see later).
Spider Drawing
Tool
No more time-consuming multiple
clicking and dragging to create a spider. This tool will
create any sized spider in seconds.
Watermarks
Want to
help protect your design work? The watermark tool allows you
to place your copyright message in “ghost” form behind the
design.
Arrows
When you need
to highlight a particular element of your design or perhaps
provide text instructions, the new adjustable size arrow
element will do the job perfectly.
Fill Style
Library
This fantastic new feature allows
you to select from a library of fills and even design your own
fills. The selected fill can then be used to fill a shape or a
freehand selected area – ideal for adding Honiton fillings,
but also useful in other types of laces. A few fills are
pre-loaded, but it is very easy to edit or add your own.
Guidelines
Guidelines
provide horizontal and vertical guides across your design to
help you line up elements and ensure everything is in the
correct place. Simple idea but you’ll wonder how you did
without them!
Text
We have
completely overhauled the text element. The result is that you
can now add up to 500 characters for each text element on
multiple lines and each text element can be aligned left,
right or centred. Each text element can be re-edited and have
its own colour and font size. We’ve even made it simple to add
copyright and trademark characters with the click of a button!
Ideal for adding instructions, copyright messages or design
details.
Auto Grid
Match
This new tool attempts to take the
headache out of matching a grid to a scanned pricking or piece
of lace. By following the guides and clicking on your scanned
picture, Lace R-XP will attempt to select the correct grid
angle and position your scan under the grid in the correct
position.
Background Adjust
Tool
This tool simplifies the moving and
resizing of your background template picture. Use the
“handles” on your background picture in this mode to drag and
shape the picture to suit your grid. Positioning of the
background template image has been made quick and easy in this
mode by allowing the dragging of the background image with the
mouse. Holding down the CTRL and using the scroll wheel on the
mouse will resize the background up and down in 1% increments
allowing you to quickly see which size is best for your chosen
grid.
New
Grounds
We’ve added a pre-defined Flanders
Ground and a Kat Stitch ground to the grid options for quick
selection.
Smooth Curve
Drawing
We’ve updated the drawing of
complex smooth curves so that it’s a smooth click and move
operation rather than having to click many times (as in Lace
2000). We think you’ll like the change!
Polar Grids
The
drawing of polar grids has had a makeover so that you can now
draw as much or as little of the polar grid as required from
10 degrees to the full 360 degrees. | |
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Fan Depth
Adjustment
When you draw a fan in Lace R-XP
you can now select the centre point and drag the fan deeper or
shallower to suit your preference. The preferences section
allows you to set your default fan depth.
Tally & Roseground
Rotation
When designing angled pieces it is
desirable to be able to rotate the tally and roseground
symbols. You can now do this with R-XP with the click of the
mouse!
Tally and Roseground
Size
Everyone has their preferred size for
these symbols. Lace R-XP lets you adjust their size as you
wish and even have a variety of different sizes within one
design.
Easy Erase
Right click on a dot, tally or roseground
to quickly erase it from the design. Saves a lot of time when
you just miss the spot when clicking in elements!
Offset on Circle “Convert To
Dots”
When creating a design using
concentric circles it is often desirable to offset the dots of
the inner circle by a set angle. Lace R-XP now allows this
option.
Accurate Circle
Drawing
To make drawing circles easier,
hold down Shift key before drawing to draw them from then
centre outwards - ideal for concentric circle drawing. Holding
down the Ctrl key at the same time will ensure a perfect
circle.
Quick
Edit
Select elements can now be quickly and
conveniently edited to change their properties by right
clicking on one of their selection points and choosing the
editing option you want from a popup
menu. | |
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Auto Update
It now takes just a click of the mouse to check for updates and the programme to automatically download and install them. No more patch files. No more new disks. You can be sure you are always using the latest version.
New Look and Feel Screen and
Menus
The Lace R-XP screen and menu system
has been given a complete makeover to make it more visually
appealing and similar to the Windows formats common on today’s
PC’s
100 Level
Undo
Nobody is perfect and sometimes we
just need to go back a step or two. Lace R-XP features a 100
step undo system allowing you to step back through your past
actions.
Zoom
Levels
Lace R-XP offers a massive 55 levels
of zoom to get your screen at exactly the size you want. Zoom
right in for those intricate sections and zoom out again to
get an overview of the whole design.
Layer Names
Our lace
programmes have always allowed you to place your elements on
different layers but now you can name each of the 20 layers to
make identification simple.
Corner Grid Size
Lace
R-XP sees a lengthening of the vertical arm of corner grids
giving the designer more space to fit larger designs.
Fine Scrollbar Scrolling
It’s often important to get exactly the
section of design you want on the screen, particularly at
close in zoom levels. Lace R-XP has super-fine scrolling using
standard scrollbars which allow you to adjust the position
with very high precision.
Instant Setup Toolbar
Buttons
Rather than having to choose which
buttons to appear on your toolbars, Lace R-XP comes with them
all ready installed on four toolbars around the screen. All
the tools are immediately at hand!
Zoom to Cursor with Scroll
Wheel
No more clicking on the zoom in and
zoom out icons. Simply point at an area on screen with your
mouse and use the scroll wheel to quickly zoom in and out on
that area. Hold down the Shift key at the same time to zoom in
bigger steps.
Curved Gimp Auto
Select
When a curved gimp line is drawn
Lace R-XP will auto select it ready for dragging it into the
curve shape of your choice. A simple enhancement but
incredibly intuitive and useful!
Enhanced Status
Bar
The status bar at the bottom of the
screen has been expanded to show more information about your
design settings and current status including co-ordinates of
the mouse, zoom level, grid angle, current layer, selected
objects and time since last save.
Ruler Origin
Lace
R-XP allows you to set the origin of your rulers to anywhere
on the design. This makes it possible to check the physical
size of your design at a glance. | |
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Loading Legacy
Designs
Lace R-XP saves its design in the
new LC7 file format. However, designs created with Lace 2000
and Lace Gold (LC6, LC5 and LC1) can all be loaded into the
program and converted to LC7 format.
Quick Design Select and
Load
Rather than selecting a file from the
normal file selection box, a Lace R-XP file can be loaded into
the grid by simply double clicking it from its Windows folder
or by dragging it from it’s Windows folder onto the grid.
Exporting to Another Application
One of the most useful new features in Lace R-XP is the ability to export your designs to another application such as Microsoft Word or Adobe Photoshop. Lace-XP exports in the standard PDF and EPS file format which are widely compatible all but the most basic of graphics and word processing applications. PDF export also offers exact size export so you designs can be printed out exactly at the size they were designed.
Preview on Load
Ever
had trouble remembering which design was which? No more
guesswork! Lace R-XP now features a preview of your designs in
the Loading screen allowing you to make sure you are selecting
the correct design.
Preview
Motif
When selecting a motif to load, Lace
R-XP has the option to view a preview to take away the
guesswork as to which motif you are selecting.
Auto Save
There is
nothing more frustrating than losing even a few minutes of
your valuable design! Lace R-XP features an Auto Save function
which will save your design at selected intervals so that even
if the worst happens you will have never lost more than a
short period of changes. Lace R-XP also displays a counter in
the status bar showing how long it’s been since your last save
or auto save. | |
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Thread Linked
Printing
Lace R-XP allows you to link any
thread with any sized printing grids. We’ve given you a list
of popular thread types against which you can store your
preferred printing grid size. Alternatively you can simply
enter your own thread type and print size which will be saved
and available for selection when printing.
Print Overlaps
On
multi-page printouts it can be difficult to align sections of
your design. Lace R-XP now has an optional feature which will
add an overlap of 1cm on each page making it much easier to
see where sections join.
Select Printed Dot
Size
Want your printed dots larger? Lace
R-XP has an option to choose the size that dots will be
printed making the chart easier to read.
Select Printed Elements and
Layers
When printing a chart you can now
select which element types and which layers should be printed.
In this way you could print just the pricking, or just the
working lines or everything , whichever you
prefer! | |
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| If you are already an
ILSOFT customer who has purchased Lace 2000 you may upgrade at
a reduced price. Simply choose the upgrade option below and
complete the order as normal. We will check our records to
ensure validity of the upgrade so if your address has changed
since your original purchase or if you did not purchase direct
from ILSOFT please email us after ordering at upgrade@ilsoft.co.uk. | |
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