vectorcraft/docs/hardware-parity.md

Hardware parity

Last reviewed: 2026-10-10 · Last updated: 2026-10-24 · Change: minor (pen pressure and the pen's eraser end on macOS, read from AppKit's tablet events, #852, not yet tried on a Mac; previously: patch: web pen buttons/modifiers preserved, touch-only input left to eframe, session-only palm rejection; tool cursors painted into the window on Wayland, #1652, not run on Linux; borderless title-bar window on Windows, #1758, awaiting confirmation; a window surface larger than 8192 px keeps working, #1459 in part; Linux Display Server preference opens the window through XWayland, #1151) · Target: Adobe Illustrator 2026 (30.x)

What hardware Illustrator uses, per platform, against VectorCraft. Illustrator's side is from its public documentation (GPU Performance, touch workspace, pen pressure pages); ours from the code (crates/ui-egui/src/canvas.rs, touch.rs, graphics.rs, crates/render). Part of target-app-parity.md.

Summary

~35% (estimated), 25–45 h. VectorCraft rasterizes the canvas on the CPU (multithreaded vello_cpu) and uses the GPU only to composite, so any GPU that can show a window works, at the cost of GPU-accelerated preview on huge documents. VectorCraft reads pen pressure on Windows, on the web, on macOS, and on Linux under X11 and XWayland, and it reads the pen's eraser end on macOS and on Linux under X11 and XWayland.

Feature	Illustrator	VectorCraft macOS	Windows	Linux	Web	Status / hours
GPU-accelerated canvas (GPU Performance, GPU Preview, GPU anti-aliasing)	Metal, DirectX	CPU raster, GPU composite (wgpu/Metal)	CPU raster, GPU composite (DX12, OpenGL fallback)	CPU raster, GPU composite (Vulkan/GL)	WebGPU, WebGL2 fallback	partial; a GPU renderer spike is pending (M5): 15–25 h
Multithreaded rendering off the UI thread	partial	yes	yes	yes	single-threaded	beyond Illustrator
Hybrid-graphics GPU choice	automatic	power-saving GPU by default, Preferences › Graphics Processor	same; DX12 then OpenGL; no Vulkan unless asked (#545, #806)	the desktop's GPU	browser	done
Restart on another GPU when the first fails to present	—	yes (#502, #964)	yes	yes	restart on lost device (#369)	done
Pen pressure	yes (Wacom, Windows Ink, macOS tablet events)	yes, read from AppKit's tablet events before the window gets them (winit reports none), each move of a stroke with its own pressure, mouse event coalescing off (#852; not yet tried on a Mac)	yes (pointer force via WM_POINTER)	under X11 and XWayland (Preferences › Performance › Linux Display Server, #1151, #2028), read from XInput2 raw events (#764); no on native Wayland, where winit reports none and the pen may not reach the window (#491)	browser pointer events, with coalesced events; Apple Pencil on iPad (hover, palm rejection: fingers navigate after a pen contact until reload)	partial: 2–4 h for Wayland (winit 0.31), plus a check on a Mac
Pen tilt, bearing, barrel rotation (6D Art Pen)	yes, drives brushes	no	no	no	no	missing: 4–8 h after the input layer (#372)
Pen eraser end	yes	the eraser end (AppKit's tablet proximity events) selects the Eraser tool and the tip brings back the tool used before, as on Linux (#852; not yet tried on a Mac)	no	under X11 and XWayland, the eraser end selects the Eraser tool and the tip brings back the tool used before (#764); no on native Wayland	no	partial
Touch gestures (pinch zoom, two-finger pan, rotate view, Touch workspace)	yes (Windows touch, Surface)	trackpad pinch, scroll and rotate	pinch, pan; two-finger tap undo, three-finger redo (#585)	same where winit reports touch	eframe until the first pen contact, then Pointer Events (pen and fingers told apart); long press opens the context menu	partial: touch workspace and touch-screen rotation missing, 3–5 h
Trackpad (smooth scroll, pinch)	yes	yes	precision touchpads	yes	yes	done
HiDPI / Retina, per-monitor scale	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	done; a window dragged between monitors of different scale can still grow on Windows (#1459, open); the custom title bar's window on Windows stays truly borderless so the pointer lines up with what is drawn (#1791, #1758; awaiting the reporter's confirmation)
Multiple monitors: panels and document windows on another screen	yes	no (one OS window)	no	no	—	missing: 6–10 h (with multiple windows, gap G7)
Display colour profile (proof and display through the monitor's ICC)	yes	no	no	no	—	missing: 3–5 h
3D GPU rendering (Materials, ray tracing)	yes	—	—	—	—	blocked on 3D (gap G3)

Revision history

Date	Change	Summary
2026-10-24	minor	macOS: an AppKit local event monitor reads each mouse and tablet event's pen pressure and the pen's end before the window gets it and writes them into the canvas's pen feed (#852): each pointer move of a stroke keeps its own pressure, mouse event coalescing is off, and the eraser end selects the Eraser tool. The mapping is unit-tested on every platform and the macOS code type-checks for aarch64-apple-darwin; not yet tried on a Mac with a tablet, so the score is unchanged (estimated)
2026-10-15	patch	Web review: preserve pen buttons and modifiers; leave fingers to eframe before the first pen contact; remove persistent pen policy. Canvas regression tests cover intermediate moves and long-touch cancellation on native and web input. Physical-device QA pending.
2026-10-14	minor	Tool cursors are painted into the window on Wayland (#1652; not run on Linux, #1645 stays open until confirmed); On Windows the custom title bar's window stays truly borderless, so the pointer lines up with what is drawn on systems where the hidden caption offset it (#1791, #1758; awaiting the reporter's confirmation); neither is confirmed on the hardware that reported it, so nothing is marked done
2026-10-13	minor	Web: the shell reads pen and finger Pointer Events itself (pen pressure with coalesced events, Apple Pencil hover, palm rejection: after a pen contact fingers only navigate until reload; long press opens the context menu); score unchanged (estimated)
2026-10-13	minor	A window whose surface is larger than 8192 px (stretched over several monitors, or grown by a drag between monitors of different scale) is configured up to the graphics adapter's limit instead of closing the app (#1495, part of #1459); the window growing during that drag on Windows is still open; not reproduced on a mixed-scale setup
2026-10-11	minor	Preferences › Performance › Linux Display Server › X11 (XWayland) opens the window through XWayland on a Wayland session, where pens and dropped files reach the app (#1151); score unchanged (estimated)
2026-10-10	major	First checklist from the canvas, touch and graphics code and the open hardware issues