Free Vector-based Illustration Tool from Microsoft

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It's nigh-on impossible to keep track of all the varied products and announcements from Microsoft even as an employee, let alone as a customer! It took someone external (thanks Damir!) to alert me to Microsoft Expression, a vector-based illustration and graphics tool we acquired last year from Creative House and have now released for no charge on both Windows and Macintosh platforms. This application looks pretty cool, although at 60MB it's probably not something to check out from a dial-up connection. Handy as an adjunct to ASP.NET or for creating cool owner-draw graphics in smart client applications, that's for sure.

This isn't our first product in this space. For the first release of Visual InterDev (an ASP web development tool that was part of the first ever release of Visual Studio), we included a great liittle utility called Image Composer that I used to use almost as much as VID itself; it was particularly useful for producing smoothed text as an image for headings - a technique that was very common particularly before DHTML became commonplace. Then we released PhotoDraw as a standalone product simultaneously with Office, although this always felt more bloated and unwieldy than the utility it superseded. Expression looks vastly more sophisticated, judging by this product tour: it will be interesting to see how it develops now it's part of the Microsoft stable.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    June 07, 2004
    Perhaps it will become the basis of the XAML Vector Graphics Editor for ORCAS.
  • Anonymous
    June 07, 2004
    The comment has been removed
  • Anonymous
    June 07, 2004
    Image Composer also shipped with early versions of FrontPage, 1.1, 2.0, back in 1998 or so.

    PhotoDraw...ugh. Gone, and not missed.
  • Anonymous
    June 07, 2004
    Maybe I'm just simple, but I really liked Image Composer. It did everything I needed. I guess it's dead now, which is kinf of a shame.
  • Anonymous
    June 07, 2004
    It would be fair to note that it's only free for existing users of Creative House Expression as stated on the main website: "As a service to the many loyal users of Expression, a free download version is available to existing users."
  • Anonymous
    June 07, 2004
    You cannot compare Expression with Image Composer or PhotoDraw. My first tests shows, that Expression can be serious compared with Freehand or CorelDraw.

    Same as with Visual Studio .NET if you are not developer, you'll need some more help in order to be able to use Expression properly. But as a object-oriented application it fits perfectly in .NET world ;-)

    Look at "Making of Blogger Guy":
    http://tomicic.de/PermaLink.aspx?guid=1b038b98-d588-440b-8e0d-ab4ac06b3e44
  • Anonymous
    June 07, 2004
    It's actually pretty amazing software, I've had a quick play araound and the reflection mapping thing is really impressive. The User Guide is really good too. Cheers
  • Anonymous
    June 07, 2004
    Worth checking into the Expression forum too if you've got any questions about it, since I'm unable to provide any insights:
    http://communities2.microsoft.com/communities/newsgroups/en-us/default.aspx?dg=microsoft.public.expression.discussion&cat=en-US-expression&lang=en&cr=US
  • Anonymous
    June 07, 2004
    I was one of those who played with Image Compower back in the days too.. too bad it's dead :(
  • Anonymous
    June 11, 2004
    As Shun wrote:-
    "It would be fair to note that it's only free for existing users of Creative House Expression as stated on the main website: "As a service to the many loyal users of Expression, a free download version is available to existing users." "

    So is it free for all or not ?
  • Anonymous
    July 22, 2004
    Microsoft Expression is MS' new vector based image tool. Available for free with a Passport login, and another form for more of your details (Isn't that covered in the Passport login?), and then a verification email. But if you get...
  • Anonymous
    June 25, 2005
    And now it´s gone. It is no longer free for all. It´s a time limited BETA called Acrylic.
    The GUI now looks terrible.
    Expression was free for all. Not just for owners of creaturehouse Expression.
    I´m glad I downloaded this great program in time :)
  • Anonymous
    February 08, 2006
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