bulia byak wrote:
... So, most vector editors render in parts, and allow you to interrupt rendering between the parts. There are two main approaches here. Illustrator renders by objects, and so you can never see a partially rendered object, but you can see a drawing that's missing part of its objects. The other approach is that we use: we never show an incomplete stack of objects at any point, but we show a partially repainted area.
To me, our approach is preferable, because it allows me to more easily perceive artifacts as artifacts - it sends a clear visual signal that what you see is partial rendering, and you have no problems to guess which part of it is rendered and which is not. With Illustrator on a slow machine, on the other hand, it is rather disconcerting to watch as more and more objects pop up in unpredictable places (depending on z-order) and to think, is this all? is it finished now? or will one more object jump one me and cover what I'm seeing?
Illustrator's method indeed doesn't sound nice, but perhaps we could consider showing objects that still need to rendered as outlines? (For example.) Also, currently we draw from bottom to top (z-order), but in almost all cases you can just as easily draw top to bottom, which could help in giving people a more useful image much sooner, as well as lessen the sensation of shapes "popping up", as any object that is drawn will not be covered afterwards.