Adobe Illustrator's Multithreading Journey Begins!
Dear Illustrator Community,
I'm thrilled to announce that we've embarked on an exciting journey to bring multithreading capabilities to Adobe Illustrator. This significant undertaking will enhance performance and responsiveness across various aspects of the application.
While this is a complex process that will take some time to fully implement, I wanted to share our progress so far.
Our Approach
We've strategically begun by focusing on the most computationally intensive operations—those that typically take more time and block the main thread, resulting in slower response times while you work. By moving these operations to separate threads, we aim to significantly improve your overall experience with Illustrator.
It's important to note that you may see more noticeable impact in some areas than others initially. However, we want to assure you that this is just the beginning, and we will continue this journey to bring improvements across the entire application.
What We've Accomplished So Far
We've already moved a few areas to multiple threads:
- Periodic document back-up
- Snapping guide generation
- Rasterization (currently for JPEG, PNG, and TIFF formats)
- Thumbnail generation for layers
- Linked/Embedded image (jpg, png, tiff) handling
What to Expect
These improvements will lead to more responsive and faster performance in several key areas:
- Placing multiple images
- Embedding linked images
- Object > Rasterize
- Export to PNG format
- Document opening with heavy linked images
- Simultaneous placement and drag-and-drop of multiple linked/embedded images (JPEG, PNG, and TIFF files)
We're committed to enhancing your Illustrator experience, and this is just the beginning. While the full implementation will take time, we're excited about the improvements already in place and those yet to come.
Stay tuned for more updates as we continue this journey. Your patience and support are greatly appreciated as we work to make Illustrator faster and more efficient than ever before.
Try It Now in Beta!
We're excited to announce that these multithreading improvements are available for you to try right now in our Beta builds. You can access these builds through the Creative Cloud Desktop App:
- Open the Creative Cloud Desktop App
- Navigate to the "Beta apps" section
- Look for the Illustrator Beta and download it to experience these performance enhancements firsthand
We encourage you to try out the Beta version and share your feedback with us.
Thank you for being part of our community!
Best regards,
Adobe Illustrator Team
John Galloway
AdminAvinash Singh Kotwal
(Principal Product Manager, Adobe Illustrator)
responded
My manager "upgraded" to a Mac that should have technically performed better than his old Macbook from pre2011 did on Illustrator, except, it ended up being just as bad. After that, and one upgrade cycle, we ordered the next range of iMacs that were much better than his "latest" mac, and should have performed better with Illustrator. They do not.
Thinking it was an Apple issue, but after reading this it is obvious where the problem is.
Looking at Adobe's virtual monopoly, there's the proof that competition drives innovation.
No real competition = Adobesaurus.