I was honored to participate in this week’s Microsoft Surface Pro launch event in Shanghai! Corel was invited to showcase a technology preview of CorelDRAW Graphics Suite introducing an on-screen experience for the Surface Dial and support for the new Surface Pen.

Everyone at Corel is truly inspired by the creativity our users around the world demonstrate every day. Your amazing designs, art, movies and photographs fuel our passion to give you the tools you need to bring your vision to life. And we’re always looking for new ways to leverage the latest hardware developments to make sure you have the most powerful creative environment at your fingertips. Our goal is to enable you to focus on your design while technology fades into the background.

With the latest generations of pen & touch based Windows computers like the new Surface Pro, we’re re-thinking how graphic artists create so we can help them transform their ideas into impactful designs. The new CorelDRAW Graphics Suite 2017 dramatically expanded designers’ toolkits with a ground-breaking new Artificial Intelligence based tool called LiveSketch. For the first time, LiveSketch makes it as natural and easy to create vector curves on a computer as it is with pen and paper!

The neural network behind LiveSketch understands all the different sketching styles used by artists – from “chicken scratches” to folded lines – and seamlessly converts them into vector curves. As ZDNet said in their review, “If you’ve found working with vector graphics challenging before, LiveSketch is a revelation.”

With CorelDRAW Graphics Suite 2017, we also enhanced support for multi-touch with a natural pan & zoom functionality. Plus, we introduced a new tablet-optimized workspace with expanded pen support. CorelDRAW 2017 and Corel PHOTO-PAINT 2017 respond not only to your pressure, but also to tilt and bearing / azimuth. Even more, the expressive qualities and creative intent of your drawn curves are saved and retained for future editing. This powerful technology makes it possible to convey the full creative expression of your designs.

We’re also thrilled to have partnered with Microsoft on a new video that highlights the amazing creative possibilities of CorelDRAW 2017 on the Surface Pro. A special thank you to Jetz, an inspiring CorelDRAW designer whose art beautifully showcases this powerful duo!

Beyond pen & touch, the Microsoft Surface Studio and the Surface Dial are giving us even more opportunities to re-think how you design on a computer, including the ability to leverage your non-dominant hand throughout the creative process.

With the CorelDRAW technology preview we showed off in Shanghai, we’re enabling your non-dominant hand to access the tools you need at your fingertips. Simply place the Surface Dial on the Surface Studio or on the new Surface Pro screen and a contextual toolbox will appear within immediate reach of the pen or your fingers. It’s the perfect enhancement for the non-dominant hand (did you know you’re naturally ambidextrous?). The black circle in the image is the location of the dial on your screen. Then, select the tool to use, and as soon as you remove the Surface Dial from the screen, it disappears and the whole canvas is available for your design.

CorelDRAW users love that they can fully customize the interface to match their specific needs and workflow and using the Surface Dial on-screen is no exception. If there’s a tool you want to have readily available, simply drag & drop it into your Surface Dial toolbox – even tools from the workspace. And if you are already using the Surface Dial, it can be used off-screen with CorelDRAW today to perform tasks like seamlessly going back in time.

With LiveSketch, support for the latest pen & touch technology, and many more new features such as a completely revamped node editing, we can’t wait to see what you’ll create with CorelDRAW Graphics Suite 2017! Get your free trial version today to experience the leading suite of professional graphics applications made exclusively for Windows. The features in the tech preview, including on-screen Surface Dial support, are expected to be a free add-on for CorelDRAW Graphics Suite 2017 customers later this year.

Happy CorelDRAWing!

Gérard

—

Update [August 14, 2018]: This free add-in to add on-screen Surface Dial support to CorelDRAW Graphics Suite 2017 is available at www.coreldraw.com/graphicsforsurface in English, German, Italian, French, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Dutch, Polish, Czech, Russian, Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional, Turkish, and Japanese.