One of the most exciting use cases for the Surface Pro 3 is design. However, when it was released, most of the desktop creative tools were aimed for mouse and keyboard workstations. Today, you can add another program to the touch-optimized list: Adobe’s Illustrator CC.
To toggle the ‘touch mode,’ you can either remove your keyboard from your Surface, or select the mode from the menu in the top right of the application. This mode brings various tools optimized for your touch on your Surface.
The new pen curvature tool allows you to create rounded edges and not have to rely on Bezier paths to model curves. Additionally, the input has become more flexible. You no longer have to switch between tools or use keyboard shortcuts to accomplish tasks such as quickly tracing a logo. You can tap once to add a point, and double tap to make it a corner.
Adobe makes interacting with objects in your workspace even simpler by enabling manipulation directly on the artboard, and a new align panel to help you arrange your objects. Hovering your stylus gives you a preview of what it will look like. Using the pen and panel, you can easily accomplish tasks such as “merging objects to create shapes and remove lines to create negative space.”
If you like quick sketching, you will know that you have a tendency to end up with lines that don’t meet, or meet when they shouldn’t, etc. The new Join Tool can be used to “to connect and merge what needs to touch and trim the lines that overlap and go too far.” Tools from Adobe Sketch and Adobe Line that enable you to easily draw parallel lines and French curves are now a part of Adobe Illustrator.
This is only an addition to Illustrator, so if you find something missing you can always go back to the traditional mode. You can read more details of the touch optimization at the VIA link below.
This new addition of the ‘Touch workspace’ to the full desktop Illustrator that many already use helps add true value to not only the Surface Pro 3, but Microsoft’s vision of hybrid computers. The chicken and egg problem is coming to an end, as both customers and developers are buying into the tablet-laptop combination. While Modern UI apps still have a long ways to go, there are ever increasing reasons to buy a touch enabled Windows PC, such as the Surface Pro 3.
Further reading: Adobe, Microsoft, Surface Pro 3
