Spread the word: ReadMeSemour.pdf is in the public domain.

WildTools, Live Selection and Hiliting
WildTools makes heavy use of live selection, which means that objects in the drawing are hilited in the PowerCADD selection hilite color. The default color is gray, which makes the hiliting difficult to see..

To change the hilite color:
Choose Preferences... from the PowerCADD menu.

Select the view pane of the Preferences dialog

Click on Hilite Color... button

Select a color, say a vibrant green

Live Selection

Now when you use a tool you can clearly see which objects are going to be selected for the operation. The example above shows the Trim tool in action. This color is used for selection handles and hiliting in WildTools, even if Hilite Selection is turned off.

WildTools and Bitmaps
With WildTools 7, you can do essentially anything to a bitmap that you can do to any other object in a PowerCADD drawing.

But just because you have a photograph or a scanned image in the drawing, that doesn't mean you can work on it with WildTools. Bitmaps can exist in Placed objects, and if you copy a photograph into a PowerCADD drawing, it can be in a number of formats or object types.

If you want to cut, distort, rotate, move in perspective, or do any of the other WildTools/Bitmap operations, you must first ensure that the object is a bitmap

.
Princess Emma and Mark Rhodes

Select the object and then look at the top of the Edit Window. If the object is a PICT or Placed object, choose Objeccts to Bitmap from the Tool menu. You will now have a bitmap object.

Bitmap Tour
Now lets take a quick run through WildTools and take a look at what you can do with bitmaps. Along the way, we will give you a few hints and tips on how you can get the most out of these new capabilities.

Knife Tool
It's essential that your cutting line go completely across the bitmap.

Michael Spencer's wife has asked for this feature for years.

Remember also that you can cut-with-line with the Knife tool.

Freehand Knife Tool
Like the Knife tool, your cut must go completely across the bitmap.

Angela Pérez looks better in one piece.

When you cut with wildly irregular shapes passing in and out of the bitmap, you can create situations the tool can't handle gracefully, and you may end up with an undesireable cut.

You are always better off cutting with a closed shape, and it's almost always easiest to draw the shape in advance, then Option-click on the object to cut with the closed shape

Matt Arnold can never be put in any box.

In the example above, we had drawn a closed Bézier curve, and then this shape is used to cut the bitmap.

You can, of course, do a better cut than this, but we're just showing the principle here

Trim with Object Tool
Use this tool to cut with any closed shape.

Pugh + Scarpa in Santa Monica

In this case we've drawn a rounded rectangle.

The unkindest cut

Click outside the cutting object to cut a hole.

Anne Marie Burke is the one

Or click inside the cutting object to trim the others off.

Distort Points Tool
You can really do some strange things to a photo with the Distort Points tool.

Jim Lewis has always been a little warped.

You can use this for perspective distortions, but you can do even better with the Perspective Blockout tool.

Shear Points Tool

The Shear Points tool witll handle bitmaps, of course.

Linear Patterning Tool

And so does the Linear Patterning tool.

Dee Calarco gets around

This is getting boring, isn't it?

WildTools 3D
  Now, things really start to get interesting

Dee Calarco gets sheared.

 

You can shear a bitmap into any three dimensional depiction.

And rotated, too.

And then you can rotate the image in the plane.

3D Tilt Tool

Dee Calarco opens doors.

Yeah, this handles bitmaps as well.

3D Mirror Tool

Jack Amos can never decide which way to fly.

Anything you wnat to do.

Perspective Tools
Now things start to get serious.

Phil Loheed is the mastermind behind PerspectiveTools, so he deserves to have this done to him.

You can use the Perspective Blockout tool to convert a bitmap to a perspective view, or use the Perspective Camera tool to go the other way--perspective to orthogonal.

Do we have your attention?

Perspective Moves and Duplications

Jacques Pochoy fades into the distance.

Use the Perspective Move, Duplicate or Move Points tools.

Perspective Rotations and Duplications

James Dixon has been rotating in perspective since long before PerspectiveTools.

Use the Perspective Rotate, Radial Duplicate or Radial Distribute tools to do this sort of thing.

Mirroring in Perspective

Bagpipe Boogie
Sara Scott, Brook Wilkinson, Kakee Scott with WildTools author Alfred Scott

The Perspective Mirror tool is at your service.

Do it, dude.

Permission Granted
If you would like to ruin someone's day, particularly a pee-cee user, feel free to email this document to anyone (you just finished reading it). Tell them to stop by www.engsw.com if they really want to be miserable.

Download the WildTools 7 Read Me file: ReadMeSemour.pdf and spread the word...