[Joshua Smith]

Hey Niels and Frederik,

Just wanted to toss out the idea of adding a Clear/Purge cache option to the File menu.

The Cutter and Lasso often start to drag (as you’re aware). My current remedy is to close then re-open the program, but an Empty cache option would be an awesome compromise.

Thank you for your consideration.

[Niels]

Thanks Joshua. Actually closing and re-opening the program should not change anything. The problem is all the internal vector data that is building up, especially when using the lasso multiple times on the same drawing. Flipping the frames, drawing lines, etc, is working at top speed all the time, it is only “overuse” of the lasso that remains a problem.

This has been an important issue for me to do something about for a long time – and as a matter of fact, we are right now making our finishing touches on exactly that! So, it is actually kind of what you are asking for. We call the function “Collapse”. When a drawing builds up with a lot of data, you will get the option to collapse it – meaning, all the internal vector strokes of the problematic drawing will be collapsed down to an internal bitmap (raster) layer. And actually this is held in memory in double resolution, which means you can still lasso/rotate/scale with virtually no degradation in the quality of the line.

As you may, or may not, be aware, the line engine in AP is quite sophisticated. And this is why you will normally be able to scale any part (or all) of any drawing as much as you want to. All lines will stay perfectly crisp as they are re-rendered even if you scale it way up. If you haven’t tried it, you should! It almost feels magical 😉 Also, with the next alpha release, you will easily be able to export in higher resolution that the one you have worked in, with perfectly crisp lines as the exported result.

After collapsing as described above, however, the drawback is that you lose the data that allows for all the perfect scaling, but only for the lines you have drawn so far and for that particular drawing in question. Everything else is still kept as internal vector data including all the new lines you will draw, and therefore they are fully scaleable. And to be clear, all this is not something you, as the user, need to think too much about. It is all handled underneath the hood anyway. 😉

So I think you will be happy with the next update. It is all included in Alpha 8, that will be released as soon as we can.

Best,
Niels