Just a quick introduction: My name is Greg Maxson and I’ve been a tech. illustrator for nearly 35 years. Since graduating from Purdue University all those years ago, I’ve held a few staff tech. illustrator jobs, while also freelancing. About twenty years ago I co-authored a college-level tech. illustration textbook titled The Complete Technical Illustrator. Check out my work and additional info at https://www.gregmaxson.com/.
I used the precursor to AxoTools many years ago, and it was an indispensable tool for building accurate tech. illustrations within Ai. I’ve only toyed with AxoTools so far, but I can already see the tremendous additional functionality that’s been built into it. Nice work.
Pleased to meet you! My name is Rama Persaud and I live in Oviedo, Florida. I’ve been employed in the Graphics Dept. of a company that specializes in the trade show industry since 2004, and use Illustrator on a daily basis. When working on booths, I have to take a detail drawing made by a detailer using proprietary company software similar to CAD and ‘dress’ the line drawing up with the client’s graphics.
I stumbled upon RJ Graffix by accident recently when looking for ways to better do this (usually by scaling and using the Shear tool in Illustrator, very tedious!) and have downloaded some of their plug-ins and have been practicing. I’m not exactly sure if the plug-ins will assist me with this task, but I’m going to keep trying!
I looked through your Illustrations, they’re Incredible! Is your technical book still available? I’m sure I can pick up useful info from it.
Hi Greg, great to hear from you. I love your illustration work!
AxoTools actually has two parents. As you mentioned, one is Ron Kempke’s AppleScript-based “Plane Ol’ 3D” and the other is a pair of plugins I wrote many years ago, back about 20 versions of Adobe Illustrator. One drew straight lines constrained to isometric angles, and the other projected selected art to an isometric plane. Once Actions became available, it was easier to just project art that way and assign a function key than to keep updating the free plugin.
When Ron contacted me about collaborating on an Adobe Illustrator plugin, I saw that he had figured out the math to do the kinds of projections I’d wanted to add to my isometric plugin in the early 90s! Since we both retired, we’ve had more time to devote to AxoTools, and it’s been exciting seeing our shared vision taking shape.
I hope users will share links to work they’ve done using AxoTools.
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