The Alchemy Alpha 004 release is now online. It has several new modules including ‘Camera Colour’, which lets you use a web-cam to select colours from the ‘real world’ based on the location of the pen.

A faceless Alchemy team member

With camera image display on

Be sure to check you have a web camera correctly installed before trying this module – due to a bug in the camera library it can cause errors if no camera is found.

Also new in this release is the ability to load and draw on top of previous sessions. A full list of the changes in this release can be found on the version history page.

From May 16 – 25, Alchemy is being shown at the Shanghai International Science & Art Exposition. We would like to ask those who have been using Alchemy in their creative process, to submit process drawings and finished artwork for inclusion in the exhibition.

This is a ‘silent update’ of the 003 release to address a few bugs (more info) and also add a small feature that was requested – you can now use the ‘h’ key to hide/show the cursor.

After a lot of positive feedback on the 002 release, the 003 release is now ready. This release has greatly improved performance due to major changes in how Alchemy draws shapes to the screen.

Functionally and visually Alchemy is the same, but when drawing with complex or large numbers of shapes there is considerably less (if any) slow down in this release. Also new is the addition of colour and user assign-able keyboard shortcuts. Enjoy!

• Features
  • Colour added – new colour picker in the tool bar
  • Foreground / Background button in the tool bar lets you draw with the background colour
  • Keyboard Shortcuts can now be assigned by the user
  • Displace affect module added
• Changes
  • Performance has been greatly improved when drawing with many shapes on the canvas
  • Line smoothing can be turned on and off in the settings menu
  • Help system has been changed to the FLOSS manual Alchemy.pdf file in the Alchemy folder
  • Export menu can now create a PNG file as well as a PDF
• Bug Fixes
  • Mirror module bug when using median shapes fixed
  • Warning dialog when closing Alchemy now functions properly
  • Trace Shapes now shows a warning dialog when a network connection fails

A month on from the first release, the second Alpha release of Alchemy is ready! Below is a list of new features, changes, and bug fixes included in this release.

• Features
  • The toolbar is now detachable into a seperate palette window
  • Trace Shapes / Speed Shapes / X Shapes modules added
  • Copy function to copy the canvas to the clipboard as a bitmap
  • Alchemy Help added
  • Japanese Localisation
  • Canvas smoothing option added
  • Background colour is now changeable
• Changes
  • PDF saving functionality improved. PDF files are now viewable throughout
  • Interface improvements, icon changes
  • Random module now has a distortion slider
  • Type Shapes module can now create shapes using the mouse and keyboard
  • More robust microphone detection and more accurate sound levels
• Bug Fixes
  • Toolbar hiding functionality improved
  • Toolbar repainting when drawing ‘blind’ fixed
  • Shortcut key mappings fixed
  • Fullscreen mode on a mac is now stable

I will be travelling to Dublin this month to exhibit at the Science Gallery and run a workshop using Alchemy on February 3rd. Anyone interested in participating, check out the Science Gallery website for more information.